Is the US Local Press better than its UK equivalent?

[non sociopath skin]

In a thread today about the local press in Florida, I wrote

"(The Sun Sentinel)is well-written with a good editorial line and balanced op-eds.

A marked contrast to the local press is the UK which is almost universally right-of-centre, parochial and full of second-rate sloppy journalism."

How do other Brit DUers feel? Was I being unfair? Of the local press I've had dealings with, The Newcastle Journal and Evening Chronicle are consistently centre-right though nowhere near as bad as the Leicester Mercury which, when I lived in Leicestershire, often read like the BNP House Journal: likewise the Hull Daily Mail.

So how is your local press?


The Skin

[onebigbadwulf]

1. NZ media is okay but pretty egocentric.

It's not as depressing as the US media that's for sure.


I have always dreamed of a government based not-for-profit media locked in a tax trust fund with all access to all events nation-wide. It would be unable to be sponsored and would have a medium on television, radio, and internet. We need an unbiased source of information that isn't afraid of being banned by the * machine.

[Guy_Montag]

2. Do the Scotsman & Herald count as local or national press?

They could really be considered either - I notice the Guardian includes them in the column inches count. Not that that proves owt. Both are normally slightly centre-left.

My old one, the East Lothian Courier, didn't have much editorial line. Just reported what was going on in the area that week. Very friendly and nice news. Like the 70 y/o who had a model plane in his garden. It was reported stolen (front page news) then reported anonymously returned (front page news) the following week. Made you feel all snuggly, safe & warm.

[LeftishBrit]

3. The Oxford Mail gives mainly just very local news

I wouldn't say it was right-wing or left-wing. It also isn't sensational in the tabloid-y sense. It's probably very boring to anyone who doesn't actually live in the locality - lots of events at local schools; reports of major and minor accidents; important local court cases; and tons of adverts to help keep it afloat.

[sweetheart]

4. The John O'Groat journal is sweet

For the little news they report on a national or UK level,
the paper is dead on. No wars, no lies, scotland could
use its independence.

This is the paper:
http://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk /

Foreign news being "so" foreign, is usually op-ed and rather
observable by its ripples in to local politics... such as the
iraq war - killing highland boys in faraway places.

The paper is funny, in that most of the readers know the
writers by name, and family, as the community is very small.
In this regard, opinions are not anonymous, and because
opinions like "legallizing cannabis" wind you up in jail,
they are never expressed. THen again, some folks take
risks with their reputations for a just cause.

The hottest issue is the windmill developments that are
proposed for the highland areas. THe local people are strongly
against most of these developments, but the "suits down south"
greasy politicals overturn local concerns for environmentalism
by calling it simply "nimby"'ism.

Well, how funny, to call it nimby, when i don't see people in
edinburgh putting up windmills on the royal mile. Rather they
would spoil a natural wildnerness with subsidized, ineffective
hairbrained eletricity generation schemes that "STILL" need to
be backed up by nuclear power... lovely green this labour govenrment..
... not.

[T_i_B]

5. Depends on the local rag where you live.

A lot of the time, if there is any slant it's simply towards whoever is running the local council. Most of the time it's fairly straight reporting which is sometimes done well and sometimes done badly.

The thing that does get the political juices going though is the letters to the editor section. I can vividly remember Lib Dem and Labour councillors having flame wars in the Sheffield Telegraph letters page.

[D-Notice]

6. Similar round here

My local paper's the Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

Every so often you get letters from the Tories complaining the paper's too left-wing, only for a letter to appear a few weeks later from Labour saying it's too right-wing...

Of course, nowadays Labour saying anything's too right-wing is hypocritical