Natalie Fahy, Nottingham Post editor, has written a brilliant piece highlighting the role the paper plays supporting the community, and spelling out the pressure it faces. Journalism is the link between the individual and society. It would be a very sad world without local papers https://twitter.com/nat_fahy/status/1247517252254961667

We should all #supportlocalnewspapers, even just buying a copy of the print edition a couple of days a week. Newspapers hold local governments to account, uncover local crime stories and champion their communities. Yet local newsrooms have been decimated by cutbacks.

Even before the coronavirus crisis this was the case - I dread to think how things will be after. Staff have been made redundant or kept on wage freezes in newsrooms across the country. Under more pressure, dozens of newspapers will simply disappear: https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2020/news/publisher-shelves-five-free-weeklies-due-to-coronavirus/

Journalism doesn't attract the same sympathies as other professions - certainly not from aspects of the left, which tends to jeer at local papers as so-called MSM establishment pillars, and abuse reporters online, rather than stick up for them as an industry under threat.

Please think about supporting your paper by buying a copy a few times a week - they're brilliant as well! - and think what a sad, and potentially dangerous, undemocratic world it would be without this important local link between individuals and society #journalism #newspapers