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Your views on local journalism

ended 08. December 2025

Keen to get your views on the health of local journalism for an article we're writing.

  • Do you feel your local news media (print and online) deliver the news you want to read?
  • If not, do you have any suggestions for how local news media could improve the content they produce?
  • Does the volume of advertising put you off reading local news sites?
  • Do you feel local news media are genuinely local or often run syndicated content that is irrelevant to local audiences?
  • Do you ever buy a local newspaper any more, or simply default to a local news website? Or perhaps neither?
  • If you were to read a story on your local newspaper, what would make you want to read it and why?
  • How would you rank the quality of local news overall?

11 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
If local news cannot tell me what is going on in my own high street, I honestly do not know who it is for. As a small business owner, most local outlets miss what actually matters. I want to know who is opening or closing, who is hiring, what the council is up to with parking, business rates, crime and regeneration. Instead I get national stories with the town name bolted on. Then there is the clickbait. “You will never guess what happened on this local road” and you get three lines of badly written, often inaccurate copy. It feels like local news is treated as second class next to the big national pages. Add in the wall of adverts and pop-ups and I am out. I only click if something clearly affects local jobs or businesses. Local news could be brilliant again if it cut the junk, dropped the clickbait and focused on proper reporting about high streets, local businesses, the council and the stories that actually matter in the community.
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Shaun Sturgess
Director at Sturgess Mortgage Solutions
As a mortgage broker based in South Wales, I find it frustrating when local media use quotes from brokers in England or London for regional mortgage stories. It makes the coverage feel disconnected from the realities of our local market. South Wales has very different property prices, incomes and buyer profiles compared to the South East, so national commentary rarely reflects what’s actually happening here. Local journalism would feel far more relevant if it included genuine insights from local experts who work with homebuyers and understand the nuances of our area day to day. Readers want content that feels authentic and rooted in their community, not recycled national stories. Advertising isn’t the issue; it’s the lack of local depth and relatable reporting. There’s huge potential for local mortgage and property news to be more insightful if the media simply looked closer to home.
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Sarah Gatford
The Positivity Pathfinder - Head of Interactions at Sarah Gatford Ltd
Local news rarely delivers. Stories tell me what happened without explaining why it matters or connecting to wider patterns. I want insight, not just incident reporting. The advertising makes sites virtually unreadable. I abandon articles halfway through because the experience is so cluttered and disruptive. What's the point of "local" news that could appear anywhere? I want the connections between issues, the history behind tensions, genuine community voices with something to say. I'd read depth and context. Stories that explore real impact on people. Solution-focused journalism showing what's working, what communities are trying. Questions that dig rather than accept easy answers. The quality feels thin. Journalists working with impossible constraints. We're fragmented, talking over each other. Local journalism could rebuild shared understanding of our communities. Instead, we're getting a diminished version that can't do the job we desperately need it to do.
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
Local journalism isn't failing because journalists got worse, it's failing because the business model collapsed and nobody's built a replacement that works. You can't compete with AI-scale content farms for online ad pennies while your print revenue dies. So you cut staff, run syndicated "stuff", and wonder why readers left. They left because you stopped being local. When five 'local' sites run identical agency copy, you're not journalism, you're cost-cutting with a masthead. The solution isn't better content, though that helps. It's hyper-local focus: the 5 mile radius. Planning applications on your street. School governor decisions. Local investigations. That's the moat AI can't cross. It can't attend council meetings or know why the chippy closing matters. Do proximity brilliantly or die trying to be a budget national. There's no middle ground left.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
Social media has taken over the local news agenda. There are more and more shoddy local news publishers using Facebook to distribute their views. The flooding of information has also contributed to the official print media locally reducing in quality at a time when they could differentiate themselves from other sources by increasing the quality of their journalism. But that's not happening.
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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
The health of local journalism in Cornwall reflects broader UK challenges: high online consumption, market consolidation and concerns over content authenticity. Readers value convenience but criticise primary news sites for excessive, intrusive advertising over in-depth public interest reporting relevant to local communities. Print circulation has declined significantly, giving way to digital and social media. There's a strong desire for more genuine local content and accountability reporting, especially on the Cornwall Council. The quality is ranked as Fair to Poor for commercial online sites, but trusted exceptions exist. Innovations across the UK offer solutions: Reader Co-operatives foster ownership and deep engagement, and Newsletter Subscriptions prove readers pay for ad-free quality. These models prioritise diversified revenue and high-value content over volume.
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Kate Allen
Owner at Finest Stays
Local journalism has become painfully thin. Most stories are only a few shallow sentences with no research, no voices from local businesses or residents, and platforms so overloaded with ads you can barely find the article. Click-bait headlines lead to a paragraph of nothing.

There is demand for real reporting. More meaningful local news from business people appears on LinkedIn than in our local papers, which says everything. What we need: deeper dives into issues, comments from people who actually live and work here, and genuine investigative journalism. Interview councillors, business owners, community leaders; anyone who can add insight.

I haven’t bought a physical local paper in a decade, and advertising in them feels pointless. If I’m going to read a local story, I want depth and multiple perspectives. Even a sports report could be richer: speak to the captain, the players, the people behind the club.

Less advertising. More substance. Real news that respects its audience.
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Sam Kirk
Managing Director at J-Flex Rubber Products
As someone based in the Midlands, I often find that local outlets are too slow to report on incidents happening nearby. More often than not, I hear about things first through local social media pages rather than through the actual news sites. There’s clearly an appetite for real-time, community-specific information, the trouble is social media has already filled that gap!

Although I understand the need for advertising, the volume and placement of ads (especially on mobile devices) make articles difficult to read/navigate. I quite often don't get to the end of an article for this reason.

There's certainly more syndicated or regional content nowadays, rather than genuinely local. Quite often during the summer holidays I'll see “day out” suggestions that aren’t specific to the immediate area, for example, “great family activities only an hour away.” That’s useful, but it’s not what I’d consider local news.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
Visiting a local news site today is a masterclass in user-hostile design. My phone heats up loading fifty programmatic ads and auto-playing videos before I can even read a headline. That isn't journalism; it’s an ad-delivery mechanism that treats readers like data points.

The challenge for small local papers is immense, but many are digging their own graves by trying to mimic the corporate giants. You cannot survive by churning out syndicated 'clickbait' or generic copy-paste stories to feed an algorithm. Small papers can’t win the volume game against the internet; they have to win on trust.

To stay relevant, local media must stop chasing 'eyes on glass' with intrusive tech and start delivering hyper-local value that AI cannot replicate. We need less automation theatre and more genuine investigation. If you offer a clean, readable product that respects the user, people will return. If you offer a seizure-inducing mess of pop-ups, they won’t.
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Dawn Maria France
Editor-in-Chief at Yorkshire Women's Life Magazine
Local news media are essential to our communities. They shine a light on local events, initiatives, and the inspiring stories of our neighbours. This connection not only keeps us informed but also gives us a sense of belonging right in our own neighbourhoods.

It's impressive to see so many dedicated journalists working hard to deliver trustworthy and relevant news.

Their focus on accountability and storytelling really makes a difference.

Plus, advertising is crucial for keeping local journalism alive. Many outlets have found creative ways to blend ads with engaging content, which also helps support local businesses.

Ultimately, local journalism is the heartbeat of our community, reinforcing its vital role in our everyday lives!
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Patricia McGirr
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
Local journalism isn’t short on talent. It’s starved of investment. Stretched newsrooms are filling space, not reporting stories, and readers can tell. They’re served quasi-national features they’ve already seen on social media and identical copy repeated across multiple sites. Communities want news rooted in real streets, not repackaged content. Expert commentary is rising because the old model relied on seasoned hacks to shape the angle, and those ranks have thinned. The truth is simple. If local news stops being local, it stops being interesting.