Letter to the West Sussex Gazette

To: The Editor West Sussex Gazette Connections2 Dear Sir, Brad Watson’s justification of the West Sussex Connections newspaper (County paper is not a propaganda sheet), shows he is confused about the role of local government and the media. Mr Watson talks about the council’s duty to communicate with us 360,000 council tax payers, and that Connections tells us (at our expense) how well the council is doing, how it advertises for key workers, and celebrates the achievements of its students. I invite Mr Watson to substitute the word “government” for council, and then wonder if he felt that the national government should bypass national newspapers and publish its own self-congratulatory news-sheet, delivered to all households at the taxpayers expense. He would be out on his ear before you could say “Freedom of the Press” or “Cabinet member for Communications and External Affairs West Sussex County Council”. Incidentally, what does someone with such a pompous sounding title actually do? Yours sincerely Neil Winton October 25, 2006

To:The Editor West Sussex Gazette Oh No! Not Connections Again Dear Sir, It's that time of the year again. The West Sussex County Council's "Connections" "newspaper" has just flopped through my letter box. This grotesque waste of council tax payers money is just a propaganda sheet, telling us, at our own expense, just how wonderful the council is. Nothing about whether the council is trying to cut back on rubbish collections like many others across the country, or if our carefully selected recycling is actually thrown together with the rest of the rubbish and put on a slow boat to China. The lead story this time is "Exam Results Moving On Up" telling us how "results are on the up" whatever that means, followed by "GCSE results could be up by as much as four per cent his year, increasing for the second year in a row". Does this mean the number of exams taken has gone up, or the quality of the results? It's not clear. What is clear is that our education system has been dumbed down to the point where grades have become meaningless. Where's the story on that? What is also obvious is that this newspaper is not written by proper journalists or organised by editors (declaration of interest, I'm a journalist but not involved with local newspapers). It is taking sales away from legitimate local newspapers and siphoning off advertising revenue. The council should be raising its profile with the local media, who could write about the council with some independence and balance, not trying to grandstand its performance in this way. I'm no lawyer, but surely it can't be legal for a council to use money belonging to its tax payers to publish this self serving rubbish? Yours sincerely Neil Winton Oct 11, 2006