My family have taken a copy of The Argus every day that I can remember, at least back to the early 70's. I remember my aunt studiously checking the death notices every evening, occasionally proclaiming ''Ooh, Mrs Soandso from number 22 has lost her husband' etc etc.. It really was the best source of local news, better than Radio Brighton as it did not have to cram both the notional and local stuff into a 7 minute slot. And Albion coverage was excellent with the eloquent John Vinicombe writing the prose.
OK, move forward 40 odd years and the world has changed. Printed media is no longer get king, even TV news is thought too slow and awkward by many favouring the interweb. Westminster Press have long dropped the 'Brighton' bit from The Argus, then moved the printing to Southampton (very local), and latterly to Weymouth in Dorset, our local rag could hardly be more detached from its' true home. Many will point to the ease of communication in the modern world, the immediacy of email, the instantaneous access to the web, I now take The Argus by subscription as it costs just £30 per year but spend zero in my local newsagent now as a result. But maybe distance will kill the newspaper......
The bus crash in Brighton yesterday made national news, BBC, Sky etc, even the Liverpool Echo ran the story! So this mornings Argus would be rammed with the story I thought, just how many pages I wondered, 5, 7 or more perhaps, and a centre pages feature? A real story for the local journals to get their teeth into you would think.
The result? No screaming headlines, not even the major story on the front page, just a small column and a photo on the edge of page. This story of injury and disruption does not even make the next six pages, you finally find it on page 8, mind you it is the whole page. Maybe it is time to put the Argus to bed........
OK, move forward 40 odd years and the world has changed. Printed media is no longer get king, even TV news is thought too slow and awkward by many favouring the interweb. Westminster Press have long dropped the 'Brighton' bit from The Argus, then moved the printing to Southampton (very local), and latterly to Weymouth in Dorset, our local rag could hardly be more detached from its' true home. Many will point to the ease of communication in the modern world, the immediacy of email, the instantaneous access to the web, I now take The Argus by subscription as it costs just £30 per year but spend zero in my local newsagent now as a result. But maybe distance will kill the newspaper......
The bus crash in Brighton yesterday made national news, BBC, Sky etc, even the Liverpool Echo ran the story! So this mornings Argus would be rammed with the story I thought, just how many pages I wondered, 5, 7 or more perhaps, and a centre pages feature? A real story for the local journals to get their teeth into you would think.
The result? No screaming headlines, not even the major story on the front page, just a small column and a photo on the edge of page. This story of injury and disruption does not even make the next six pages, you finally find it on page 8, mind you it is the whole page. Maybe it is time to put the Argus to bed........
