Musings from the editor's chair: A timely reminder of the importance of the local press

There’s a week for everything it seems. And this week is Local Newspaper Week, when the regional press celebrates the vital contribution papers like the Advertiser up and down the land make to the communities they serve.

Now in its 20th year, it gives the local press the chance to highlight the importance of the role we perform.

And like some kind of ironic equation it’s a role that is growing more important at the same time as the local press finds itself contracting in the face of the most difficult and sustained financial climate it has ever known.

But while I could go on about brutal trading conditions and the internet hitting the local press with a double whammy of losing both revenue and print readers, I’m going to focus on the positives.

Yes times are tough. But – and more irony here – thanks to our own digital offerings we are reaching a bigger audience than ever. Plus, despite the difficulties, there has never been a more exciting time to be a reporter.

When I started nearly 30 years ago you had a notebook and pen and wrote your stories on a typewriter. If you needed to phone in a story to hit a deadline, for example from court, you had to find a payphone – younger readers might need to Google ‘typewriter’ and ‘payphone’ at this point.

The reporters of today have and amazing array of storytelling tools at their disposal – smartphones to take pictures and video, and social media giving instant interaction with our audience. You can follow our reporters covering meetings live on Twitter.

And of course writing up those stories no longer requires copious amounts of correction fluid.

So, Local Newspaper Week is the chance for us to bang the drum for the constantly evolving local press and the often undervalued role it plays.

Because there is one thing that hasn’t changed – the commitment to inform readers, to give them a platform to have their voice heard, to campaign on their behalf and to hold power to account by reporting what those in authority are doing and saying.

The local press is quite simply the lifeblood of local democracy.

Yes, you can get the latest gossip on social media, but where do you go for trusted local information from trained journalists working to high industry standards?

And likewise what about informed local debate? There is still nothing to rival letters pages like Viewpoint – they are a place to present ideas which can be challenged and debated in a civilised environment a world away from social media ‘discussion’ which rapidly descends into insults and nasty attacks.

In a media landscape now characterised by a blizzard of untrustworthy information and fake news, the local press, in all its forms, remains a bastion of trust and an essential pillar of our communities.

And it is more vital now than ever.