The collapse of local news reporting and any importance of councils
You'd think, with the internet well established now, that the basic reporting of things about your local representatives would be fairly simple. If you wanted to know, you'd be able to find out about what your county councillor had recently done, for instance. Although there is no longer a weekly free newspaper for my town any more (it just stopped delivering, without explanation, a couple of years ago, but there was normally only about 1 page of news in it, so it didn't seem a great loss), there is still a website run by the newspaper owners (who publish a paid-for daily for Southampton, and a paid-for weekly for south Hampshire), plus a couple of sites for news for the town, run by amateurs. And the BBC runs a news website for the county.
So I was a bit surprised to get a polling card for an upcoming county council by-election through my door today. And looking on all the above-mentioned websites, none of them has anything about it at all. Digging out of the bin the Lib Dem flyer that came through my door a couple of days ago, I find the long-serving Tory councillor has resigned. It doesn't say why (health wouldn't surprise me - he's quite old). Searching the county council website, I can find that they say the council seat is vacant, but with no explanation why (or, at that list, the former councillor's name - elsewhere on the council site, the most recent thing is him handing over the chairmanship of the council, after his one year stint, back in the spring).
I find it amazing that the professional news company, or the BBC, haven't managed to note his resignation; that the county council only managed to note it by removing his name from their list of councillors; and that there is basically no sign of it on the internet. The exploits of the local football team in the 'Vanarama National League Premier' can be followed each week, but the change of the political representative of about 20,000 people? Not important.
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Is that the free local paper has been taken over by the Sheffield Star (which is a rubbish paper) and then ruined. Now it's all stories about Sheffield, recycled from the Sheffield Star rather than the local area. 
There are also glossy monthly local magazines. The one in my area is notorious for having lots of articles about the local celebrity (60's popstar Dave Berry).
The result of this? A few years ago a Tory councillor for my ward got kicked off the council for non attendance and this year he's been reelected without so much of a single eyebrow raised from the local media or the other parties standing locally. There does seem to be a trend towards less scrutiny of small councils, which is worrying.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/http/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x29193
