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Printing pressure - jobs at risk

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It seems strange that your local newspaper might soon not be printed locally.

Sadly, that might be the case though, as the CN-Group run printing press in Carlisle is at risk of closure. New owners Newsquest are considering the move, which could affect 34 jobs, due to the “tough economics of the newspaper printing market” along with the problem of ageing equipment, and a world where print is steadily being replaced by screen.

Future copies of your local paper may come from Glasgow. It’s clearly a difficult and worrying time for those whose livelihoods are at risk - Newsquest acknowledge that the proposal has nothing to do with the quality of the service delivered, but that’s small comfort when you may be about to lose your job.

Is this just the top of a slippery slope, though? Increasingly, local newspapers are disappearing or being forced to reduce their staff. Less staff = less news. A drop in the breadth and diversity of reporting means fewer sales.

If you’re thinking this is all just “progress”, have a good ponder about where else you’ll get your local news, other than perhaps a few top stories.

Local papers are also a safe haven for columnists. Allow them to disappear, and people like me will be out on the streets, offering their opinions to you. That’s surely enough to make anyone feel de-pressed.

This post was meant to have appeared as the third piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 23rd of March 2018. It didn't, and they jut ran with the other two pieces and more/larger pictures. Whilst I've not had any explanation, the fact that CN Group were the owners of the two newspapers I write for until just recently, and Newsquest are the ones looking at shutting the printing press down, was probably the deciding factor. 

 So, for only the second time in six years, one of my pieces didn't get published! 

 One day, we'll look back to when local newspapers existed and reminisce about how great it was to find out about what was happening in your town/village/street, without having to trawl through speculation, rumour and general bullshit on social media, or only get the big stories from the big outlets.

(CD A-Z: Just nope. Still in boxes.)
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