Buckinghamshire Advertiser: a failure of local journalism

Britain's regional newspapers are in crisis. Sales and advertising are falling, and titles closing. 

Perhaps inevitably, standards of journalism are falling. Nick Davies described some of the reasons for this in his book Flat Earth News. Journalists have little time to find, check and write stories. So I shouldn't be surprised by two serious errors in successive weeks on the front page of our local Buckinghamshire Advertiser. 

The most serious was a story in last week's paper suggesting that Beaconsfield was set to be the centre of a cake war between Gordon Ramsey's former pastry chef and and Raymond Blanc. Today's paper revealed that almost every detail in the story was wrong.

This week's howler appeared in the front page lead story about the proposed high speed rail line from London to Birmingham through the Chilterns. The story warned that ... "many homes would have to be bulldozed to complete the track by 2017..."

The swiftest glance at the proposals would have shown that 2017 was the earliest work could start on the line, not the completion date. In reality, it could be even later - or never, if Labour loses the election. 

There's little point in having local papers if they're as incompetent as the Buckinghamshire Advertiser.

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Perhaps inevitably, standards of journalism are falling. Nick Davies described some of the reasons for this in his book Flat Earth News.

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I shouldn't be surprised by two serious errors in successive weeks on the front page of our local Advertiser