It is good that there should be a real independent provincial Press. People ought to read national newspapers, but they also ought to read local newspapers too, for England, even now, is still the country of local government , local politics, strong local interests, and only the newspaper written and published in the immediate neighbourhood can deal adequately with such government, politics and interests. It is important that people should read that Alderman Smith said this and Councillor Robinson did that. It is important that they should realize what is happening in their own district. Gossip and chatter from Fleet Street in a poor substitute for such information about and criticism of local affairs. Any decent provincial newspaper ought to be able to give its readers a much saner picture of the world than the popular national papers, with their hysteria and stunts and comic antics.
J.B. Priestley, English Journey (1934), 36
Sadly, much of this is no longer true.
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