Regular readers will know of my belief in the importance of local newspapers. They’re an important cog in keeping communities properly informed and a vital check and balance to ensure local democracy is held to account. Unregulated Facebook groups, which is where we might end up in a decade’s time, is not the same thing.

At the same time, it’s very easy to mock local journalism. Indeed, there have been various humour books capturing the best/worst of press parochialism over the years: Whitstable Mum in Custard Shortage and Angry People in Local Newspapers both collated classics of the genre, while The Framley Examiner wrote their own spoof stories. Road Stays Open. House Fire Started By Squirrel Disrupts Funeral. Planning Permission is Granted For Controversial Tortoise. Only one of those headlines is made up!

For those of us working in local news, it’s important to try and avoid these pitfalls … and also to point out when our rivals fall foul of such parochialism. Which leads me to the headline that popped up in the Facebook feed of the Trowbridge-based paper The Wiltshire Times this week. The article concerned the announcement that former Take Thatter Robbie Williams is to play a concert in Bath next summer. It’s one of those nice news stories cum press release pieces that make the local news world go round. There was just one problem with the announcement. While the Wiltshire Times covers much of West Wiltshire, its reach does not stretch as far as Bath. How, then, did their journalists make the story relevant to its readers?

Robbie Williams To Play Live Concert Just 30 Minutes From Wiltshire.

Now. There’s a lot one could take issue with in this headline – what kind of concert isn’t live? – let alone the subsequent article, which claimed that ‘Robbie’s historic 2025 concert will be a fitting way to celebrate 250 years since The Royal Crescent was built.’ (Yes, because nothing honours Georgian architecture better than a rousing rendition of Rudebox).

But let’s focus in on that dodgy dossier style claim that the concert will take place ‘just 30 minutes from Wiltshire.’ Is that really the salient detail to put in the headline? How many Wiltshire-based Robbie Williams fans are there for whom under a half hour’s travel is a deal breaker? And has the journalist even been to Bath? You can easily spend more than 30 minutes just trying to park. Wiltshire, too, is a big place: Bath certainly isn’t 30 minutes from Salisbury, unless you’re going via magic carpet.

Local newspapers, as I say, are important. But not everything has to be localised to this degree. Too much of it and, to quote Robbie, we all come undone.