Forum Topic

Another Gazette failing

I have complained before about the paucity of local coverage. Now it seems sport is fit for one page only. No wonder it is a free paper. Who would buy it?

Graham Weeks ● 2889d20 Comments

The decline of the Ealing Gazette and other local papers is a serious threat to democracy. The days when the Gazette used to attend council meetings to monitor what is going on is long past. As I understand it, the Gazette does not even have an office in the borough.

Ian Richardson ● 2888d

You are right about a threat to democracy. I used to enjoy the Gazette and read it from cover to cover. I remember around 1959 a full page article on the Brentford branch of the railway from Southall. There was even an account of the drivers career and the guard too. Local history at its best.

Nicholas Beard ● 2886d

There is also Get West London.

Philippa Bond ● 2885d

Get West London is the online version of the Gazette. It is no better or worse even because you have to negotiate through a whole series of pop up ads and surveys to get to any of the stories. I'm disappointed to hear that the sport coverage of the Gazette has declined as it used to be quite good on the local clubs. These days I have no idea where to get a copy so I can never read it.

Gordon Southwell ● 2885d

I agree Get West London is no advance on the paper. I've had to abandon an attempt to read stories on it a number of times due to intrusive pop up ads and surveys making it not worth the bother.It has been nearly a year since I have even seen a copy of the Gazette. I used to occasionally pick up one from Morrisons in Acton but have stopped going there and I'm not aware of anywhere else near me where it is stocked. Certainly none of the newsagents no longer stock it.The sport used to be its principle attraction. As has been pointed out it certainly used to have coverage of clubs like Brentford and QPR which was more in depth than the Standard or the nationals. As for news coverage it wasn't that great. The reporting of Council matters was generally a parroting of the official view which I suppose is understandable given their total dependence on council ads. This site's general news coverage has always been far superior.

Andy Jones ● 2885d

The apparent support for the Council seen in the Gazette is probably more a function of a lack of resources than any commercial dependence or political bias. If the Council press department are writing copy for you to fill space then there is no need to do any actual reporting. I don't think the paper has any specific journalists for the area  — the stories are mass produced in a office out of the borough. There was supposed to be a BBC funded journalist supplied to the paper to cover local government but I'm not sure if they are in place as like most people apparently I never can get my hands on a copy of the paper and have given up trying to use their web site. The coverage here is better anyway as it is written by someone who knows the area so no loss.

Dennis O'Shea ● 2885d

The pop up for surveys is irritating but if you look down the choices you can click on one avoiding actually doing it. I haven't seen the Gazette paper for ages.

Philippa Bond ● 2885d

I've worked out the trick with the surveys but once you are into the articles there are all sorts of other hazards such as videos autoplaying and ads opening without you consciously clicking on them. It often becomes impossible to scroll because the page is jammed up with such gunk.

Gordon Southwell ● 2884d

Those videos are extremely irritating a they are so loud and interrupt whatever anybody else in the room is doing - eg having a telephone conversation.I've now got McAfee blocking it - or rather stopping it in its tracks and they do it faster than I can find the right buttons.  Not perfect - but an improvement.

Philippa Bond ● 2884d

All the pop ups and irritating surveys are due to the intense pressure Trinity Mirror (now called Reach) is under to raise revenues. Payouts for illegal phone hacking could reach as high as £70 million and most of the cost saving has come from the local papers which have been subject to swingeing cut backs for over a decade anyway.The Ealing Gazette now seems to have ceased to function as a paper. I've argued in the past that residents get the local press they deserve and it should get support but really their owners seem to be holding us in contempt.The reason they can cut back so aggressively on staff and print run is that most of their revenue now comes from the Council through the notices that are published in it. This is actually a major money spinner for them because the Ealing Gazette is used as the basis for the local paper in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham areas which don't even have a pretend local paper. All their notices are published in something called 'The Gazette'.This basically means that money taken from Council taxpayers in these boroughs in going to fund the payouts this company has had to make from its illegal activities in the past.What the Council could do is insist that Reach provide a proper newspaper with a much larger distribution that employs reporters based in the area. I strongly suspect they won't do this as they probably are quite happy with a situation in which they are subject to no scrutiny from the local newspaper and residents don't get to see public notices so when the Council is doing something they might object to, the chances are it won't been seen until it is too late.

Andy Jones ● 2884d

The company that owns the Gazette can get away with this because, despite their massive decline in readership, they still retain very effective political influence. Trinity Mirror are the monopoly local media in metropolitan areas such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool and therefore all political parties want to keep them onside. The chances of them being held to account for the lack of a proper newspaper despite the huge subsidies they enjoy is never going to be dealt with. One way that Trinity Mirror (and other newspaper groups to be fair) ensure political support is to provide wraparounds during election times so that the paper is covered with an ad for a political party. So for instance in recent elections you will have seen the smiling faces of local Labour candidates and their supporters on what is effectively the front page of the newspaper. Apparently this coverage is billed at £4,999 which is the threshold under which donations don't have to be declare. From what I'm told no cash actually changes hands but the company gets the credit for supporting a winning candidate plus a free pass to collect significant revenues from the public sector without actually providing the news service they are supposed to and the party can inflate their donation numbers.

Dennis O'Shea ● 2882d

So if Trinity Mirror have closed their offices in Ealing where is the Ealing Gazette based now?

Gordon Southwell ● 2881d

The Ealing Gazette gives the address as Woking Road, Guildford

Fred Hunt ● 2881d

The Days that have long gone Have been lost to political administators who have cleverly plotted to keep as far away from the people the Councillors and others were meant to serve.Now the once popular Ward meetings have dwindled to almost ten in a year.Now meetings when possible are held so that the Voters may not have a promise that others might be a witness to. Hence it is held in private to isolate the One asking for an answer. I was hoping the current Byelection following the demise of councillor "Bagha" would be for a candidate known in the people of the Ward that is being catered for. Many never heard anything about the chosen candidates activities that qualify their Nomination for the vacancy. I am a labour voter, wondering if the chosen candidate needed to be nothing more than person ALIVE TO THE PARTY to qualify

Os a whittle ● 2879d

I thought when the closed all the local offices they moved to Watford.

Andy Jones ● 2879d

I had the misfortune to work for Trinity Mirror for a while, during the period when the knife was being taken to local newspaper coverage.As ever it was money, specifically advertising revenue, that drove the agenda. Cut editorial staff to the bare bones, close titles and offices and reduce print runs - it all added up to produce papers that nobody was interested in picking up and reading.As a result we in West London are left with a rump of papers that present Council press releases as news, with no scrutiny of decision making or criticism of controversial policies. For example, where is the investigation into the situation at the Ark Tower in Ealing - which presumably passed the Council's planning department?The Labour administration enjoys a large majority - what do they say about absolute power? - and thus does what it likes. Try to stand up to them and you get ignored.I managed to pick up the latest edition of the Gazette when I was in Ealing yesterday and Mr Bell had his usual piece in there complaining about austerity and how the Tory government was to blame. A bit rich coming from a man who is determined to squeeze as much money as he can out of anyone who needs to buy a CPZ permit in the borough. As long as he can go to his constituents in Greenford and say he hasn't put Council Tax up he's happy!I agree with other posters on this thread that a free press is vital in a healthy democracy. The fact that we don't have one locally - this website being the honourable exception - should perhaps get us concerned about the state of the 'democracy' in which we live.

Simon Hayes ● 2877d

Ha Ha Mr Hayes, you have neglected to mention Clr Bell's :-Two Houses - One in private ownership whilst living in another Housing Association - excellent Champagne Socialist credentials there!Two Jobs - Leader of LBE whilst also Researcher to Virendra Sharma MP - being Leader doesn't keep him busy enough!Clandestine Loan - I'm not too spammed up on this one, it was all discussed a few years back, but there is (or was) a Council Loan to Mr Bell on, err, "special" terms - lubbly jubbly!.  Plus Anything Else Yet To Be Uncovered.    :-)

Rosco White ● 2877d

Is he our own Liberty Bell? Cracked?

Graham Weeks ● 2877d

Mr Bell is a strange man. Clearly never had a proper job in his life yet feels qualified to tell us how we should live.What's worse is his particular brand of politics is being pursued at our expense. He has spent over £300,000 on the campaign to save Ealing Hospital. That includes almost £120,000 on publicity and a further £90,000 on an NHS 'consultant'. That's a lot of our money being spent on something which is ultimately out of his hands.Whilst I don't begrudge people having particular viewpoints, I do begrudge being told that there's no cash for services when so much public money is being spent on a political cause. By all means, protest if you wish, but don't spend taxpayers money doing so.

Simon Hayes ● 2876d

Guildford

Joanna Dabrowska ● 2876d