Local Newspaper Week

The Chronicle — making sure your voice is heard

DO you want to know how the money you pay in council taxes is spent?

Do you care if the police are making your area safer?

If your hospital wards aren’t clean, do you want to know about it?

If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’ then you believe in democracy and the right to know the truth without spin or gloss.

Local newspapers like the Oldham Evening Chronicle highlight the good work done by local authorities, police forces and health boards up and down the country.

But that doesn’t mean local newspapers take the information they are given at face value — they challenge, probe and pose the questions their readers want answers to.

If a local newspaper uncovers an instance of wrongdoing, it shares the information with its readers and provides a platform for them to have their say.

By scrutinising public bodies in this way, a local newspaper acts as a watchdog for democracy and gives a voice to the community it serves.

It is in recognition of this vital role that this year’s Local Newspaper Week, which starts today, is themed Your Voice.

Readers, businesses, politicians, and other high-profile figures are getting behind the Week because they recognise the value of local newspapers in upholding democracy.

Democracy begins locally. If abuses of power are allowed to fester at a local level, there is a danger they will eventually grow to infect the entire system of governance.

Without local newspapers, your right to free speech would be placed in jeopardy. That is why they truly are the building blocks of democracy.

Local newspapers shine a spotlight into the corridors of power by regularly covering local courts and council meetings.

No other media can do this so effectively, especially not council-run newspapers which pretend to be impartial while promoting the interests of the local authority.

If a public body has a success story to tell, there is no better way than through the local newspaper because it is trusted above all other media.

And local newspapers are normally happy to give their readers some good news.

Local newspapers tell the warts and all truth about the way communities are run while providing a unique platform for readers to have a say on the issues that really matter.

Local Newspaper Week isn’t just about your local newspaper. It’s about you, and the right to make your voice heard.


Have your say on the Chronicle by e-mail:

editorial@oldham-chronicle.co.uk  

or click on the comment box below the Local Newspaper Week story on

www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk.


TOMORROW: Your Chronicle at the heart of local sport


Family value of the Chron

CLIVE Newton, managing director of Emanuel Whittaker Ltd, Royton, builders of the Oldham Coliseum and Lyceum and winner of this year’s One Oldham Business Awards, said: “I have read the Oldham Chronicle for as long as I can remember. I recall our family of six getting great value out of the Chron and the Green Final.

“Sports results were the first thing I used to look out for, junior school football and cricket, later it was tennis and badminton and now it’s golf.

“Our company works in most towns in the North-West and I don’t know of many that still has five days a week up-to-date local news when in happens.”