Read all about it! What's happening to local democracy?
Vital part of the community or mouthpiece for the local council?
We asked what you thought of your local newspaper and whether you're worried that local democracy and proper scrutiny of councils is going out the window. The responses varied from
' Without the wonderful Stockport Express exposing what is going on here, goodness knows what would be got away with in Stockport.'
to
'Local democracy where I live is being undermined by the presence of a weekly newspaper produced by my local council. Its delivered free to every household in the borough..but is in effect a partisan PR mouthpiece for the labour controlled administration and certainly doesn't attempt to have any role in scrutinising local democracy.'
And as discussing these very issues today - we thought we'd invite one of our listeners to put points to him directly.
And that listener was Stewart Payne. He's worked as a journalist for over 20 years, and for the last 5 has sat on his parish council. An edited version of this will appear on Saturdays programme.
iPM is continuing to follow this up, all comments and ideas very welcome.
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