Birmingham City Council's Forward newspaper faces axe
Birmingham city council’s Forward newspaper could be axed as pressure on public spending grows.
Forward’s last edition appeared in June and city bosses will next month decide whether to make the suspension permanent or reduce publication and distribution.
Almost 400,000 editions of the free paper, formerly called The Voice, were delivered to homes, community centres and libraries every fortnight at a total cost of about £600,000 a year.
Council publications were initially set up as a vehicle for council job vacancy and public notice announcements, and thought much cheaper than paying to advertise in commercial newspapers.
But critics have slammed them as propaganda pamphlets allowing the council leaders to tell citizens how great they are.
Government Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw recently compared the local authority free-sheets to the former Russian Soviet state newspaper Pravda and asked why taxpayers’ money was wasted in this way.
Council newspapers in Doncaster, Cornwall and Lancashire have been closed or cut in recent weeks and Forward faces a similar fate when the council’s director of communications Debra Davis issues her report on council communications to the council cabinet.
