THE LOCAL WEEKLY
Sta,—Mr. Frank J. Ward questions my statement that " many a country household takes in no other paper " but the local weekly. Evidently his experience is at variance with mine. All I can fay is that in those parts of the country which I know best the position is as I stated it. I would agree that the "more sensational Sunday papers " are making headway in the country districts, largely owing to the enterprise of country newsagents, but I doubt whether they are yet as universally distributed as Mr. Ward suggests. In raising the question of threats to the independence of local weeklies Mr. Ward points to a danger which is at present, I think, potential rather than actual, but which we should certainly not ignore. It is true that throughout the country there are several groups of local weeklies united in a common ownership, but the great majority are still sturdily independent, financially and politically. Relations between a local weekly and the community it serves are of necessity so close that I doubt whether any substantial measure of remote or centralised control over a group of weeklies could possibly be successful. Nevertheless, the danger undoubtedly exists, and it is as well for us
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