“News” is incidental. The cosy relationship between local papers and abysmal local councils, smarmy politicians, farmers and corporations is inimical to critique of any kind. Letters to the ed. are often the only source of criticism, vitiated by the fear of retribution- anonymity is an urban luxury.

But the bush gives thanks: a city commentator has leafed through a sheaf of rural papers.

The other week we had an edition which I think stands as a classic in the genre of information-free journalism.

In the middle of Bega there’s a landmark building known as the Central Hotel; one of those big old residential hotels that date back to the early 20th century. On the front page of the BDN under the banner headline “Development Approved!” and a big colour photo of the Central was a story by editor Steve Strevens about the local council approving a redevelopment of the site. On and on it went for about 600 words spilling to page 2 with verbatim accounts of the incoherent ramblings of our local councillors and an adjoining property owner about traffic and pedestrians in an adjoining laneway and possible parking problems.

About 400 words in I began to wonder exactly what the approved development actually is. I’m still none the wiser.

The web edition of the story is here if anyone wants to try and work out what it’s all about: http://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/development-approved/1620999.aspx?storypage=0

I would have thought this would have been fact number one: what are we getting here? Obviously, Steve thought this fact so unimportant that he couldn’t be bothered telling us. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe the Council doesn’t know either but approved it anyway.

[edited] A few months ago we had another front page splash about a council budget decision that was apparently not good news for senior citizens. We’re still waiting to find out why or how.

A former editor of the BDN paper once told me that actual news doesn’t sell the paper. The locals apparently just want to see the names and photos, if not of themselves, then of their friends and their children in the paper and that’s sufficient incentive to buy it.

I’m looking forward to the building work being completed to find out what all the fuss was about.

I was wondering if rainfall depression is feeding social depression and thus less boisterous or confident local news gathering. You know, a variant on the slide into irrelevance of the National Party?

I was also wondering if this does not have to be the case. Like a resource curse leading some countries to awful dysfunction and corrupt politics violence and endless conflict, so too a tougher leaner hungrier rural scene might lead to a more robust and innovative local media doing more with less, so to speak.

True enough the cheaper logistics of the web could be the key, when combined with lower rent, lower costs of living often (a generalisation I know).

And that might still mean web based content gathering for a printed edition. It would save alot of costs for trusted digital images to be emailed in to the editor. That is uncropped ones in raw form as happened to one of mine ended up on the front page of Narooma News apparently about 3 years back.

One criticism I’ve made is that the websites for these outlets is mostly an afterthought. You can see recent examples at http://showcasejase.blogspot.com/2009/08/daily-agoniser-online.html

The print editions also have their issues but mostly these have improved since Rural Press took over the Riverina Media Group. I’m annoyed I didn’t keep some of their more amusing headlines, some noted at http://showcasejase.blogspot.com/2008/05/smartarse-melbournian.html

Another criticism is that regional papers tend to write for the older demographic at the expense of cultivating younger readers. It doesn’t bode well for the future of regional newspapers.

My then managing editor suggested that it was about an arithmentic scale: a local newspaper with 100 local names in it was good, one with 200 was better and so on. Local names about committees, local sport results, local events etc etc etc. were the things which drove readership

Too much of the local media - suburban and rural is not local at all but is merely packaged across many areas.

It sounds from Margaret Simons’ research that the Rural Press group is actually avoiding that trap.

And if I was the editor of the Lachlander I would have thought a story on Merino Education Day - direct quotes or not - would have been a bl…..dy good yarn.

Noel Turnbull