The Slow Kill of Local Newspapers

My former employer, regional newspaper group Archant, has announced it is to close half of its London offices, forcing nine of its offices to relocate.

According to a report in Press Gazette, leased offices in Swiss Cottage, Harlesden and Hornsey, which is home to The Ham & High, Islington Gazette, Hornsey Journal and Willesden Times series, will close, but a new location is yet to be found.

Advertising and editorial staff from East Ham, Romford and Dagenham, which house staff working for the The Newham Recorder, Stratford Express, Dagenham Post and The Romford Recorder, will all be shifted over to the Ilford office (where I used to work). Where are they all going to sit? On the roof?

This looks to me like a gradual shift towards reporters - and fewer of them - working remotely via laptops and mobile phones instead of side by side in an open plan office. Journalist Sam Leith in today's G2 sings the praises of the open plan office, and I can only agree with him. Perhaps we will start seeing reporters using the local library as their office. Either that or burried away miles from their patches where they will conduct every interview over the phone instead of getting out there. Stories will be missed and every story will begin to sound the same. Sub editors will probably be pooled down to a hardcore editing more than one paper. Quality will be compromised and the number of people reading local titles, especially paid-for titles, will drop further.

But what do the big bosses care? It's all about the so-called "new-look organisation" to them. A healthy democracy needs local news.