Mike Nesbitt backs SDLP’s plan to support NI’s local newspapers

Former Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has backed an SDLP proposal to get Stormont to urgently assist Northern Ireland’s local and regional newspapers through the economic disruption caused by the pandemic.
Some weekly newspapers have already stopped publishing due to the crisisSome weekly newspapers have already stopped publishing due to the crisis
Some weekly newspapers have already stopped publishing due to the crisis

SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole set out a five-point plan to help sustain local journalism at a point when some local newspapers have already stopped printing due to the inability of readers to get to shops to buy the paper and a collapse in advertising.

Unlike other industries which were in a strong position prior to the crisis, most newspapers across much of the western world were already battling falling print sales and declining revenues.

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Mr O’Toole’s proposal includes a rates holiday with half the money ring-fenced to go to new online products or recruiting journalists, Executive support for advertising with local media, a £1 million NI Journalism Fund to train and employ local democracy reporters and coordination of a newspaper delivery service.

Mr Nesbitt, a former journalist, contacted the News Letter to express his support for proposals which he said “deserve support”.

The Strangford MLA’s local newspaper, the Newtownards Chronicle, is one of several papers to have already stopped printing for the duration of the lockdown.

He said that as well as covering the local courts and the council, the paper “gives you the local news that wouldn’t be deemed important enough for a regional newspaper, it does community notes from every community it serves, it helps celebrate and mark local milestones, it acknowledges good work locally, it has all the local sport, it has local photography and so as well as news it is integral to a lot of social functions in the community”.

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Noting the absence of either an upper chamber or an official opposition at Stormont, he added: “To lose one of the three regional papers would be unthinkable, particularly at this time when it is almost on its own as a body of scrutiny of the Executive.”

When asked about other industries which are also struggling, Mr Nesbitt said: “I understand the argument that everybody is in crisis and needs help.”

However, the MLA said that Northern Ireland was particularly reliant on the media for scrutiny of politicians and others, given the weaknesses of scrutiny within our legislature.

Mr Nesbitt said that elements which in most democratic societies would hold the government to account such as an upper chamber and an official opposition are absent in Northern Ireland, meaning that “the media in Northern Ireland is more significant politically than in any other region or country in these islands”.

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He said that the Executive had taken “unimaginable powers to interfere with every citizen’s liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of association, and at the same time the Assembly has given up an incredible degree of its powers of scrutiny, for understandable reasons.

“The media should be stepping into that gap so I believe there is a special case on those grounds.”

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