In Walsall there used to be dozens of reporters, but they have gone – along with much-needed scrutiny

Dead pigeons litter the abandoned offices of the Walsall Observer newspaper, where parts of the ceiling have fallen in on the rooms where reporters used to sit. The newspaper’s name is still displayed proudly on the front of its town-centre building but its last edition was published in 2009. It was once one of three rival newspaper offices covering the town. Now all are closed.

Almost 300,000 people live in the borough of Walsall, which sits on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation between Wolverhampton and Birmingham. It has a council, a magistrates court, several MPs and a lot of residents who want to know what is going on in their local area, one of the country’s most deprived. What it is lacking is journalists to provide the goods – and an answer to the wider question of what local news should look like in 2019.

“There was a shared sense of people seeing the same thing in the newspaper, [it] gave lots of people good information on things that had happened locally. And now that’s gone,” said Eddie Hughes, the Conservative MP for Walsall North, on a time when there were dozens of reporters based in the town.

Quick guide The state of local journalism Show Hide How bad is it for local newspapers? - Revenues from advertising placed by small businesses with the three biggest regional newspaper publishers fell from £2.8bn in 2006 to £832m in 2016. Thousands of jobs have been lost, with many outlets kept alive with one or two reporters. The UK is now at the point where towns such as Harlow in Essex have no newspapers Are other forms of media affected? - Local commercial radio has been subject to wave after wave of consolidation, with many formerly independent stations now owned by major groups such as Global or Bauer. Earlier this year, Global announced it was ending local breakfast shows on the majority of its regional stations and replacing them with broadcasts from London Is there cause for hope? - In some towns, large community Facebook groups provide streams of raw information that, although not recognisable as journalism, can help keep people informed in the absence of a news outlet. Many hyperlocal publishers have managed to gain loyal audiences by covering traditional community news, but are often labours of love rather than businesses. One unexpected change, according to Matt Abbott of the Centre for Community Journalism, is hyperlocal websites launching financially sustainable print editions. “They’re small enough they can target local businesses and give local businesses a reason to advertise," he said.

The Wolverhampton-based Express & Star continues to produce a daily Walsall edition but pulled its dedicated office out of the town, while the free weekly newspaper the Walsall Chronicle is put together outside the town. Last year the free Walsall Advertiser – already based 18 miles away in Tamworth – followed the Walsall Observer in closing down, while a regional edition of the Birmingham Mail has a limited amount of local news.

On the streets of Walsall people talk about the decline of their local press in the same terms as the decline of their high street – having a local title is a matter of pride that goes beyond its news content. More than anything they find themselves increasingly having to turn to unreliable word-of-mouth sources – either in real life or on Facebook or WhatsApp groups – to find out what is going on.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The former offices of the Walsall Observer. The newspaper printed its last edition in 2009. Photograph: Andrew Fox/The Guardian

Maureen Forks, who has lived in the area all her life, said she increasingly popped into the local hairdressers to find out what is happening in the town. “You’re being forced into using computers and I don’t like it because everything’s going online.”

Chris Morley, a National Union of Journalists regional organiser, describes a world where outlets that have been teetering on the edge for a decade are now on the cusp of giving up altogether.

In London, the continued presence of the Evening Standard masks to some extent the decline in local newspapers for the constituent parts of the capital. And the fact that almost all major media organisations have their main headquarters in the capital naturally means the implosion of local media is felt more keenly in towns and cities beyond the south-east.

Over the last decade outlets have been merged, staff laid off and physical offices are increasingly being closed in a final effort to cut costs. The end result often leaves a single junior reporter trying to fill an entire town’s newspaper, meaning they are inevitably reliant on press releases and material provided by the authorities.

“The publishers don’t like giving the impression they’ve given up on everything, so they apply a sticking plaster,” says Morley.

Hughes, the MP, suggests the collapse in distribution is part of the problem. People would flick through a local newspaper at work – or have a freesheet drop through their door – but even when online local news is available, it relies on people already being enthusiastic about what is happening in their local area. “Rather than having it handed to them, they have to go in search of it,” he says.

Hughes says his constituency workers are increasingly acting as reporters, with people turning to his social media pages to find out what new developments have been approved.

However, he acknowledges that means reduced independent scrutiny – something that one US study suggests plays a key role in keeping down the cost of local government. He says: “Sometimes they’re getting our version of a story … I would like to say – because of the type of person I am – we do our best to not be overly partisan and just try to say what’s going on.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Tory MP Eddie Hughes says his constituency workers are increasingly acting as reporters. Photograph: Andrew Fox/The Guardian

Despite the efforts of the Express & Star and Birmingham Mail to cover the area, he says many of his constituents have limited interest in news from nearby cities. “For many going into Wolverhampton or Birmingham is a big trip for them that they do once or twice a year.”

At Walsall magistrates court, lawyers do not recall seeing any reporters there recently, as they rattle through a string of cases. There is a woman facing a criminal record after pleading guilty to continuing to claim a benefit she was not entitled to after taking a second job to help pay for her family. There is the visibly terrified market trader pleading guilty to theft after taking some crates from the bins near a local Marks & Spencer to hold his vegetables. And there is an alleged assault involving the bosses of two rival garden fencing businesses.

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All are human interest material that could have filled the back pages of a local newspaper and be used to show that justice had been done. But the economic model to provide such coverage no longer exists. The question is whether it is worth saving the existing institutions or just starting again.

More than 80% of UK local newspapers by circulation are owned by just six companies. Most grew fat on the enormous profits that came from having an effective monopoly stranglehold on local advertising until the mid-2000s, as the only place to sell a car or advertise a local job until this began to transfer online. The majority coasted with enormous profit margins that subsidised public interest journalism, with many of the big groups racking up enormous debts through acquisition sprees and failing to invest, only to see the entire business model collapse as eyeballs – and advertising cash – switched to Facebook and Google.

Big city circulations that used to be measured in the 100,000s are now lucky to break 20,000. The only way to maintain profit margins is to cut costs. In this environment outlets that serve tight-knit small-town communities may be surviving but mid-sized towns with mid-sized papers are being hit hard – and it is hard to reach enough online readers to justify investing in journalism.

There are some attempts to plug the gap. In Walsall the BBC has paid the cost of the Reach group hiring Gurdip Thandi to cover Walsall borough council as one of the 150 reporters on the corporation’s local democracy scheme. His comprehensive copy is shared with the local BBC site and rival local newspapers. But as yet the scheme does not extend to local courts, high street news, or campaigning on issues such as health provision or housing – which is what many people miss.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inside the former offices of the Walsall Observer. Photograph: Andrew Fox/The Guardian

The government’s Cairncross review proposed direct subsidises to local papers. Others suggest a different approach, where hyperlocal news outlets run by one or two people return to boots-on-the-ground reporting for a small area, freed from the need to contribute to a corporate owner’s debt repayments.

“All this thing about the death of the newspaper isn’t about the death of the newspaper, it’s about the death of the corporate-owned newspaper,” says Dr Rachel Matthews of Coventry University, who specialises in the history of local journalism.

“Despite all this wringing of hands, perhaps it’s a good idea if the corporate local newspaper dies and if something comes in and takes its place.”

But there is still something to be said for the mass reach of a print paper. On Bloxwich High Street, in the north of Walsall, nursing home carer Dave Owen says it would be a shame if the remaining local freesheet went. Where does he get most of his local news? “The pubs and socialising.”