Reform council last year banned journalists from a major local newspaper<\/a>. Nottinghamshire county council eventually ended its ban on the Nottingham Post and its website, Nottinghamshire Live, after being threatened with legal action.<\/p>\nIn the Derbyshire case, Reform said its decision had been made after a \u201cprolonged period of concerns\u201d, which culminated in a story about potholes.<\/p>\n
Councillors had hoped to produce positive headlines with a press release stating that the number of potholes in the county had been slashed from 12,000 in April to less than 700 \u2013 a figure it described as the lowest recorded in over a year.<\/p>\n
However, an article by Bisknell, one of a group of local democracy reporters funded by the BBC, reported that questions had been raised about statistics used in the release.<\/p>\n
The block on engaging with Bisknell emerged as the council took issue with another story about how a fence panel had been cemented across a gap in a wall between an 81-year-old woman\u2019s garden and a council car park. The work had been initiated by the previous Conservative-led administration.<\/p>\n
However, Reed said the decision to block the reporter had been made before the latest story about the fence appeared. He denied an outright ban had been imposed, saying Bisknell was still able to write about the council and attend public council events \u2013 a right enshrined in law. However, he confirmed the council would ignore his requests for information.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be very clear: non-engagement is not a ban,\u201d he said. \u201cHe can still write whatever he wants. What we\u2019ve chosen to do as an administration and as a council is just not respond to his inquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to other good working reporters and journalists who actually hold us to account. We want to be scrutinised. We want people to challenge what we\u2019ve done. We want to get good news stories out and we accept that we\u2019re going to have criticism, but it needs to be fair and balanced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Natalie Fahy, editor-in-chief for London and the east of England for Reach, which owns Derbyshire Live, said Reform\u2019s decision was plainly a ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have covered some awful situations at many different councils over the years, and we don\u2019t always expect our relationships with councils to be cosy, but we do expect there to be an open dialogue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say this isn\u2019t a ban is the worst kind of double speak and something we should all be on guard for, if you consider a free press essential to a functioning democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawn Alford, chief executive of the Society of Editors, called for the decision to be reversed. \u201cRefusing to engage with a journalist because you object to their reporting sets a dangerous precedent,\u201d she said. \u201cA council cannot simply choose which reporters deserve answers. Transparency is a responsibility, not a favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis matters far beyond one journalist or one story. When a public body shuts out a reporter, it is the public who lose access to answers about decisions taken in their name and money spent on their behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura Davison, the NUJ\u2019s general secretary, called on the council to \u201cget off its high horse and respect the democratic norms voters and local communities they represent expect\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rows over potholes and a viral story about a garden gate have led to Reform UK\u2019s latest confrontation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-789746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}