THE birth of the local authority ‘newspaper’ might just be the biggest threat yet to the existence of independent local media, yet ironically it also serves to prove why independent local newspapers are so vital.

How did we reach the point where a council publishes a weekly paper?

Life used to be simple. Newspapers enjoyed a captive audience, a workforce based in local manufacturing, with money in its pocket, money it spent on keeping the home fires burning.

Everything’s changed now. The local newspaper has to fight tooth and nail to be at the heart of family life – sadly the main competition seems to be Britain’s Got Talent!

But we’re still here. Regional newspapers have an unrivalled record of successful metamorphosis - and have done it repeatedly for more than a century. We’ve had to.

But now a new enemy lurks. Invasive and insidious, like Japanese Knotweed, it tries to look like something that can live alongside us, but all the while it is trying to replace us, to occupy the ground we currently feed on.

Greenwich Time is one of the biggest council newspapers in the country. It comes out roughly 47 times a year.

It tries so hard to be seen as a ‘proper newspaper’. It has a property section (council housing, for which the vast majority of GT’s readers would not be eligible), a sports section and even a TV guide, which most real newspapers had to give up producing a long time ago.

Look closely at the content and you will see it is no more than a propaganda sheet for the local authority. There is not a single word of criticism on the ruling Labour party within GT’s pages. Instead, it pretends everything in Greenwich is lovely and warm, like an old black and white film - reassuring, safe, nice.

Tackling this incursion is not easy, especially at a local level. For reasons of very basic economics, weekly paper parent groups often print council papers. Councils argue that they can get their product through more doors than, say, News Shopper goes.

They also argue they need to exist because those ‘pesky’ local papers insist on printing negative stories about the council. We insist on holding the council to account on behalf of the taxpayer. How very dare we?

The reason they really exist is twofold – to attempt to become seen as the authoritative community voice and to get their hands on the advertising revenues currently held by the independent local papers. It really is that simple.

And we need to be there to challenge them.

If we aren’t the councils will get what they want – papers like Greenwich Time will become your only source of local information.

Local Newspaper Week gives us the opportunity to celebrate our impartiality, our credibility and the place we have striven to cement in the communities we serve.

We are proud of these things and we will continue to fight and campaign to retain them – whatever the obstacle.