17 May 2018

Local Papers Celebrate #TrustedNewsDay

Local newspapers across the UK are opening up their newsrooms to show readers exactly how trusted local journalism is produced as part of Local Newspaper Week’s #TrustedNewsDay today.

Local newspapers have launched a series of initiatives including inviting readers to submit questions about how a local newsroom operates and highlighting their highly trusted credentials in their coverage.

The #TrustedNewsDay kicked off with a Thunderclap supported by daily and weekly local newspapers, editors and journalists which went out at 9am today with a social reach of nearly 2.5 million.

The initiative is part of LNW which has seen thousands of votes cast in the Making a Difference online public vote for the best local newspaper campaign of the past year.

The winner will be announced at the Society of Editors Regional Press Awards tomorrow by News Media Association chairman David Dinsmore who wrote an op ed for LNW.

David said: “We have so much to be proud of. Our local newspapers produce high quality local journalism which makes a real difference, day in day out. Forty-two million people, 83 per cent of the population, count themselves as local newspaper readers, in print or digital.

“We must use Local Newspaper Week to shout unashamedly about the immense value of local journalism and we’d like to invite you, our readers, to do the same.”

LNW has also been backed this year by actress and writer Rachel Shenton who wrote and starred in the Oscar-winning short film The Silent Child. 

Rachel said: “Local journalism, trusted and accurate news information produced by local papers, is more important than ever before in the age of ‘fake news’ spread via social networks.

“We rely on trained local newspaper journalists to separate fact from fiction and get to the truth, even if powerful interests would rather it remained hushed up.  In addition to holding the powerful to account, journalism has other important benefits such as promoting literacy.”