REGIONAL AND LOCAL MEDIA

That this House views with growing alarm the flood of newspapers and reporting jobs being lost all over Britain as a result of cut-backs by the Trinity Mirror publishing group; records the fact that 44 newspapers have been cut in the past 12 months alone; understands that a further £20 million worth of cutbacks in 2009 will have a further severe effect on much-needed reporting in communities across Britain; is deeply worried about the way these cutbacks are impacting on the regional and local coverage of politics, cultural, communal and other issues; cannot stress strongly enough that a healthy democracy needs a healthy media which holds political institutions and politicians to account and questions everything they do and that having a top-rate, vigorous, questioning media is vital to communities and people right across Britain; and urges the Government to take all steps it can to ensure that a much-needed thriving regional and local media industry is maintained and strengthened.