The Media Trust is today calling for "news hubs" where journalists can re-engage with the public face to face. These hubs would be sited in community centres, schools or the back room of pubs, and be financed by lottery money and local authorities. But why would councils put money into helping newspapers that should, by rights, be peering into the murkier corners of council business?

Natalie Fenton, professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of the trust's new report on meeting the news needs of local communities, says: "Well, they [councils] have an obligation to be seen to be accountable. And it would be a better use of their money than these local authority newspapers that are little more than propaganda sheets."

Perhaps the bigger question is why these hubs should be thought necessary. Why did journalists apparently stop "walking the beat", as Caroline Diehl, chief executive of the Media Trust, puts it, and turn to rewriting press releases and phoning police press officers, sometimes based 20 miles away, to find out about crimes happening on their doorsteps?

More ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/11/local-papers-community-new...