Local press continues to cut back as editor axed
The controversial American owners of the News Shopper have cut back more staff with Newsquest making the paper’s editor redundant.
Simon Bull has been let go in a departure he described as “undignified and unpleasant”.
Newsquest have reduced staff numbers continually in recent years and at one point moved staff over to Sutton. Its own parent company is the subject of a hostile takeover bid.
It was also announced this month that the once popular and widely-distributed 185 year old Mercury is also no more after years of decline and the closure of its base in Deptford years ago. It will be subsumed within the South London Press.
Over the Thames and The Wharf paper recently closed and its owners, The Mirror – now known as Reach – have launched a pan-London title named MyLondon based in Canary Wharf.
Lack of knowledge?
You can tell much of the old press rarely visits areas they cover as articles usually have no pictures of locations to run alongside stories. It’s all Google images or nabbed from social media. Whilst every site does that to an extent (this one included) it’s pretty much every single time at others.
Fortunately, whilst the old fashioned media struggle with ever fewer staff often based miles from areas they cover, local news websites such as 853, Bexley is Bonkers and Deptford Dame go from strength to strength, with people who live in the area and among communities covered demonstrating invaluable knowledge of what happens on the ground.
You can tell many staff at those papers and sites like News Shopper have little knowledge of areas they cover on the whole. Not their fault as they look like young people trying to scrape a living at the start of a career but it wont give much insight and analysis of events.
MyLondon is just a clickbait factory from what I’ve seen. Can’t see it lasting long, and the Mirror have enough problems to properly fund it.
I have to say Murky we get more information from yourself and the 853 website than we do through the news shopper. Comments made on some of the reported news items are joke with 3 or 4 people just abusing each other all the time. So please keep up your excellent good work Murky.
I remember when Newsshopper used to land on the doormat every week and was full of interesting articles. These days distribution goes no further than my local Sainbury’s.
For a while, I viewed it online but the doings of the local criminals take up a disproportionate amount of space. Goodbye Newsshopper, I won’t miss you.
News Shopper a disgrace. I sometimes see their website, and the comments under articles are humiliatingly damaging their ‘reputation’. And who are working there ain’t journalists but 15 yo kids doing a school paper. Pity about The Wharf by the way, not able to read it that often but was quite cool