The government has launched a public health campaign but there are many in our community that it will not reach because Whitehall has not included independently owned community news publishers like The Isle of Thanet News.
The All in, All together campaign is a welcome response from the government to provide essential information about the coronavirus pandemic at this time. It is also a demonstration of the government’s support for the press.
However, unless you pick up a copy of a larger regional publisher or a national newspaper, you will not have heard about it.
The Isle of Thanet News is a member of the Independent Community News Network (ICNN), which is the official trade body for independent community news publishers. Together, we reach over 5million people online each month, and over half a million in print. This makes us part of the fourth largest news publishing organisation in the UK.
Organisations like ours are frontline key workers in this industry who are keeping our communities afloat with genuine, accurate and important information during this pandemic.
Sadly, we are also the news outlets most at risk from the current crisis. Yet the Government has seen fit to exclude us from its public health campaign. And that means they have excluded our readers too.
It is critical for public health that organisations like ours continue to give essential, verified and useful information to the communities we serve. Any public health campaign that does not include publications like ours is insufficient and is a dereliction of the government’s duty to communities at this time.
This is why we are calling for support to demand urgent action from the Government to include us in its public health advertising. We need this so that we can continue to bring you the valued and trusted news you have come to expect from us and rely on.
Please share this article using the hashtag: #saveindependentnews.
*South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay has made an intervention on behalf of The Isle of Thanet News by emailing Penny Mordaunt, the Cabinet Minister responsible for this particular ad campaign, with our details and his concerns that we have not been included in the public campaign.
