An editor has demanded that a local council should stop producing its fortnightly newsletter because it competes unfairly with his newspaper.
Keith Magnum, founder of the Hackney Citizen, says east London’s Hackney council is luring away advertising revenue from the local press with its Hackney Today.
The Citizen is a free monthly, with a print run of 10,000, while Hackney Today, also a free, has a print run of 108,000.
Government guidelines state that publications run by local authorities should not be published __more often than quarterly.
In his open letter to Hackney’s mayor, Philip Glanville, Magnum wrote:
“We call on you to halt the sale of advertising in the council’s fortnightly freesheet and on its website so that the borough’s news publishers can at least operate in a similar commercial environment to those in the vast majority of other London boroughs.”
Magnum accepted that the council had a right to produce its own communications for residents, but regarded the selling of advertising space as “unfair competition.”
He argued that Hackney Today “would not be viable were it not subsidised by the taxpayer”, adding: “It does not rely on advertising sales as its lifeblood. But local news publishers do.”
Glanville, in an email sent to the Hackney Citizen, countered that it would face a loss of between £100,000 to £150,000 if it did not sell display advertising for its newsletter. He wrote:
“Hackney Today is still by far the most popular source of information in Hackney about the council, other local services and national policy changes, especially amongst older people and those on lower incomes.
Given the amount of change around housing, education and welfare reform it is __more important than ever that this information reaches everyone in the borough.”
He pointed out that most of its advertising revenue comes from the NHS, schools, colleges and housing associations. As for display ads, these are obtained “through a national network” and do not therefore involve local businesses.
Magnum was unconvinced. “Three years ago I said I did not regard Hackney Today as a competitor,” he said. But the commercial landscape newspapers “has changed significantly since then” with journalists are being laid off and newspapers folding.
“If the challenges for local newspapers are exacerbated further by local councils, it will have dire consequences for democracy.”
Ted Jeory, the Independent’s investigations editor who runs a blog covering the neighbouring borough of Tower Hamlets, backed Magnum.
For years that council ran a weekly, East End Life, until government commissioners forced its closure. Now the council produces a quarterly, which complies with government guidelines.
Jeory said: “Hackney Today seems to display the same attitude to transparency and accuracy on costs as the old East End Life.
“On page 2 of every edition, it says: ‘It [Hackney Today] has a print run of 108,000 copies and is delivered free to every home and business in the borough.’
“It’s simply not true that it is distributed free. The council (ie, taxpayers, its readers) pays Trinity Mirror to print the paper and a distributor to deliver these 108,000 copies.”
And Magnum has also secured the support of another local rival: Hackney Gazette editor Ramzy Alwakeel. He said: “I hope Hackney council agrees with me that the existence of a free press is an indispensable asset to public life in Hackney.
“I believe the best way for the town hall to communicate with the people who live here is by working with papers like the Gazette and the Citizen, not competing with them.”