Beverley Guardian – 160 Year Affiliation With Beverley Comes to an End

Beverley Guardian - 160 Year Affiliation With Beverley Comes to an End

A publication that has blessed the homes of residents in Beverley for the past 160 years will come to an end this week as the Beverley Guardian is printed for the final time.

In the years I have lived in Beverley the Beverley Guardian was the free weekly paper shoved through your door on Friday that was the looking glass into the wider community.

Ask the who have lived in Beverley and who read the Guardian what they most enjoyed, they will tell you the same thing, the letters page, court files, sport and what’s going on.

I seem to recall there was a small note in the insert where people could go to the local news agents in at certain times to ‘chat’ to the reporter, I guess that is how things were done.

In the bigger scheme of things, the loss of this local paper is not a good for the town. Many social groups, charities, sports clubs and schools stand to miss out of vital publicity that the Beverley Guardian provided them.

Exposure for these groups helps them raise funding and is often a key part for many teams securing a sponsorship agreement with a business, an assurance their brand will be seen in the local press.

In a Town that is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live and an affluent part of the UK, the closure means the owners of the title, Johnston Press, think Beverley’s economy is not strong enough to support a local paper.

Jeremy Clifford, JP editor-In-chief, told Hold The Front Page:

“Our approach is to give our titles the best chance of showing consistent growth in audience numbers while taking into account factors such as their size, location and the local economic climate. Some titles will be better placed than others to do this and these are the ones we need to focus on.”

Local papers tend to generate their income from a few sources with advertising being a major part. If you look at a copy of the Guardian from 35 years ago the adverts are all locally based and owned businesses, a reflection of how the high street used to be.

Over those years a lot has changed. Take the emergence of social media, for example. Small business can now talk directly with their customer base and people no longer need to submit letters to the press to get their view heard. They can do it in real time where ever they are.

I for one am sad to see The Beverley Guardian disappear from the newsstands, who would have thought a paper that had stood the test of time for so long serving Beverley would come to an end this way.



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This article has 2 Comments

  1. The writing was on the wall a few years ago when they stopped printing my letters or letters from anyone critical of local authority.

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