People in the Peak District awoke one August morning this summer to find copies of the High Peak Reporter waiting on the doormat. The paper delivered local news, all of it refreshingly positive: the front page led with the announcement of an upgraded rail line, while other headlines reported “More police on the beat” and “Extra skills investment”. But its presence would have come as a surprise to many readers. No one had subscribed to the Reporter since it closed, after more than a century in business, in 1998.
It was not a real newspaper but a zombie – a piece of promotional material created for the local Conservative MP, Robert Largan, by a company in nearby Manchester. As such, it was just the latest example of how the local newspaper industry, which has been all but destroyed, is now being replaced. Freed from the oversight of local reporters and editors, businesses and politicians have begun to create their own information networks – they look like local news, but report only the things their owners want the public to see.
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