In defence of council-run papers

We've blogged before about council-run papers, their bottomless pockets, uncritical worldview and generous salaries with which independent local papers find it impossible to compete.

But the NUJ's in-house Journalist magazine (we've just linked to the website, and it's everything you'd expect from the NUJ - remember the web in 1999?) has an interesting letter this week which hits back.

Helen Watson, Claire Rudd and 14 other NUJ members who write for Tower Hamlets Council's weekly newspaper East End Life, write:

We 'jumped ship' because the papers we worked on did not pay 'grown-up' wages - try paying a mortgage and bringing up kids on less than £20,000 a year for a 45-hour week, especially in London. It might be feasible if you've just left uni or have benefactors who can help you pay the rent while you struggle through on poverty wages. But those options are not open to most.

Many of us are women with children, qualifications for low-status, low-paid jobs in a lot of industries. Working for a local authority gives us flexi-time, decent maternity leave and pay and better holiday entitlement - benefits won by long years of struggle by public sector trade unions.

Low pay on local and regional newspapers has nothing to do with the rise of council publications or the recession. Journalists' salaries have been pitifully low for years.

Many of the group editors and senior managers on these newspapers who bemoan the demise of editorial quality have been enjoying the benefits of boom, whilst squeezing the staff who write the stories.

Well, it's a point of view. Sounds a little old-school 'my job is my right' NUJ, perhaps, but it's a valid argument made with fire and passion.

Now let's hope the East End Life team use that same fire and passion when covering the next Tower Hamlets council meeting. Remember, it's not the council bosses who pay your wages. It's the taxpayers.