Council coverage in Lancashire Evening Post

Posted: November 28th, 2009 | Author: Ed Walker | Filed under: Journalism | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Picked my local paper to cover as part of Help Me Investigate’s look at how much council reporting there is UK local newspapers. The Lancashire Evening Post covers Preston and the surrounding Lancashire areas. It’s a Johnston Press title and is based at their multimedia/printing/production hub at Broughton, Preston.

I found that there were 35 pages devoted to news on 23/11, 25/11 and 27/11 and of these 6.25 pages were given over to ‘council reporting’.

Like others I’ve been finding there is little reporting of council meetings, more stories are created from council press releases and then a few quotes from councillors. It’s also not clear when these councillors were saying these quotes, although the councillors title and ward are always attached.

The best edition for council reporting was 27/11 when there were lots of small stories in with reports from environment/planning meetings which boosted the coverage for that day. Council reporting rarely got leads, these were reserved for crime and lots of debate about the recent decision to move the National Football Museum away from Preston to Manchester.

Am going to do the Lancashire Evening Post again next week and try to get an edition each day (I couldn’t get hold of a copy on 24/11 as it was sold out at all my local newsagents!).

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4 Comments on “Council coverage in Lancashire Evening Post”

  1. 1 links for 2009-11-29 « Sarah Hartley said at 8:05 pm on November 29th, 2009:

    [...]   Council coverage in Lancashire Evening Post by edwalker.net The Lancashire Evening Post covers Preston and the surrounding Lancashire areas. It’s a Johnston Press title and is based at their multimedia/printing/production hub at Broughton, Preston. [...]

  2. 2 Simon McDermott said at 1:47 pm on November 30th, 2009:

    Hey there

    Came across your blog. Regularly keep updated with the Lancs Telegraph also, and there’s little, if any questioning of Blackburn council. Lots of what appears to be re-written press-releases.

    Shody state of affairs!

  3. 3 Ed Walker said at 4:13 pm on December 5th, 2009:

    Hi Simon,

    Thanks for the comment, I agree – not enough questioning. You should sign up to Help Me Investigate and do the Lancs Telegraph and help contribute to the investigation. I think it’s going to turn up some interesting results, especially if any newspaper groups are bidding for funding on the basis of ‘local democracy coverage’ etc.

    Ed

  4. 4 Council coverage in local newspapers: Update « Sarah Hartley said at 10:14 am on January 4th, 2010:

    [...] The Lancashire Evening Post didn’t fare quite so well with little direct council coverage found and a lack of questioning arising in the comments, leading Ed Walker to the conclusion. “Like others I’ve been finding there is little reporting of council meetings, more stories are created from council press releases and then a few quotes from councillors. It’s also not clear when these councillors were saying these quotes, although the councillors title and ward are always attached.” [...]

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