All news starts off local. Without reporters dropping into a court case, pestering the manager of an NHS trust, sitting through an inquest or badgering the local bobbies, democracy and accountability in Britain would not be possible.
Local news, effectively local newspapers and their websites, is essential to our society and don’t let anyone tell you that the propaganda rags produced by local councils are a substitute for independent newspapers that can run campaigns, concentrate their fire on a council or simply cover the local sheepdog trials.
From Henry Porter’s I Mourn the Death of Local Newspapers, The Observer (2009)














