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A Parliamentary committee has called on the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the impact council newspapers are having on the regional press. Just days before Parliament was dissolved, the culture, media and sport committee became the latest Whitehall body to challenge local authority-run newspapers taking on private media outlets. Committee chairman, John Whittingdale MP, said local newspapers were facing ‘unprecedented challenges' as a result of the global recession, and he criticised councils which had set up their own free newspapers, which ‘act as a vehicle for political propaganda'. The 80-page report singled-out Hammersmith and Fulham LBC's H&F News. ‘It is unacceptable that a local authority can set up a newspaper in direct competition to the local commercial newspaper in this way,' said the report. Last month, the Trinity Mirror-owned Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle launched an advertising campaign, warning readers that H&F News was masquerading as an independent newspaper. The committee report also called on the CLG to make sure all local authorities made it clear to their readers that these were council publications. An Audit Commission report in January concluded that local authorities were not wasting public money by producing their own newspapers. The Government's Digital Britain report, which was published in June 2009, concluded that council-funded publications could not hold local institutions to account in the same way that an independent media might. ‘Councils want to see a successful and vibrant local media,' an LGA spokesman said. ‘It is essential for local democracy that the workings of local councils are scrutinised, and elected representatives are held to account. ‘From spending substantial amounts on advertising to sponsoring campaigns, local authorities are doing a great deal to help the media through difficult times,' he said.

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WHITEHALL

MPs seek probe into council newspapers

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