Blog talkers this week


I am actually doing this on time! The question to get conversation going this week is:
Please tell us: What story is on the front page of your local newspaper? Do you think the event is worthy of front page coverage?
This was a bit difficult, as there is no piccy of the front page on the website for our local paper, the Cambridge Evening News, and there is lots of updated news on the site with no information as to what was the front page headline so I went to the local shop and checked out what was on yesterday's paper (there's no Sunday edition) and then looked up the story on the net..

It was this:

50 jobs axed by council

Worthy of being 'Front page news' ? Well local council services in the UK are in a bit of a mess in lots of ways with funding from central government a thorny issue at the moment. The reason given for this state of affairs was
The council is pushing forward with a complete revamp of its customer services in an attempt to simplify its own systems, giving better service and saving time and money in the process.

The council has already approved the plan, which will involve merging the customer contact centres in six different buildings around the city, and as many as 160 telephone numbers for different departments, into a single point of contact

It seems like a sensible rationalisation. The local paper seems, beyond the attention grabbing headline, to have recited a pretty good sales pitch for it! Perhaps they just printed the press release?

I could have gone for one of the other local weeklies for my patch, but thought I would go for the daily which seems to be very popular. I buy it on occasion, but most of the news is (appropriately) for the city and we live in the sticks. Although there are pages of 'village focus' - there's just not enough news to fill a paper.

It feels odd calling a Cambridge a city, it's pretty small, more like a large town. Over here in the tiny island of the UK cities on the whole have larger populations except for cities with historical importance like Cambridge.

Comments

Dr.John said…
When I see a headline like that I wonder what happens to the fifty people losing their jobs?
11:49 pm
Alastair said…
That was my first thought, but we are a very high employment area, in fact the Uk is generally low unemployment and high prosperity.

All that and a free health service, we've never had it so good!

Obviously this is skirting over somewhat the growing gap between rich and poor, Urban decay and rural isolation, as well as ongoing issues such as congestion and pollution, global warming, widespread racism, social exclusion and others.

But, as i said, the reason that the 50 loosing their jobs didn't really stand out for me is because there are lots of jobs, high and low skilled and often paid at above minimum wage, in this area. Particularly in customer service, which is where the cuts are being made.
11:56 pm
Anonymous said…
I too wonder about the people .... :(

I've got my own answer online as well if you want to check it out.

Cheers from Toronto!
2:29 pm
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