Chronicle boost

Fellow Cheshire blogger, The Wordsmith, has posted about the future of newspapers and some new developments at the Chester Chronicle.

The new Chronicle site is very welcome, given that it will be update daily - for once, the 900,000 residents of Cheshire will have access to frequent local news updates. It's not often that local media steals a march on the mighty Beeb, but we'll be keeping an eye on this.

At a time when newspapers are under huge financial pressure as a result of falling advertising revenues, it's good to see them embracing Web 2.0 and looking forward. All the BBC seems to do is bleat about not getting enough licence fee and failing to provide a full service for many licence-payers.

Cheshire to disappear?

After the usual complete news blackout on BBC Online, we are astonished to find a sudden flurry of stories.

Mrs Bin Laden of Northwich is divorcing.

There's been a robbery in Culcheth. (If anyone know where this is, do please tell us - it's clearly one of the smaller villages in our vast county!). This was the second in less than a week as robbers attacked a security guard in Culcheth a week ago.

There have also been two sexual assaults on women - one in Widnes and the other in Warrington.

Stories that are definitely not being covered by Aunty include the looming final decision on the unwanted Glass Slug in Chester - a decision is expected imminently as to whether this project will be cancelled as promised by the new Tory administration.

The other hot story that no one seems to be talking about except in the local papers around Cheshire, is the future of our county itself. The government sometime ago demanded council mergers, the result being that Cheshire could end up with either one unitary council covering the entire county, or two - in which case Cheshire would be split into West and East unitary councils.

However, Cheshire County Council, in a recent paper delivered to homes in the county, suggests that the the government really intends to wipe Cheshire off the map for good. In such a scenario, West Cheshire would be absorbed into Merseyside, creating a new county of Merseyshire, and East Cheshire would be absorbed into Greater Manchester, creating the new county of Manshire. You can read about this outrageous proposal here.

We find it astonishing that no one in the media is showing the slightest bit of interest in this story. This would be a major shake-up of local government that would see a historic county vanish forever, and cities like Chester, which culturally is poles apart from Liverpool, sucked into the morass of Merseyside.

Mind you, if it happens, the BBC will be off the hook and no doubt delighted that they won't have to keep fobbing off 900,000 residents of Cheshire with flimsy excuses as to why they won't provide a BBC Radio Cheshire or even a paltry news page on the website...

Yet more zoo stories

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that nothing ever happens in Cheshire except for events at Chester Zoo. At least if they are reading BBC News Online. Today's hot story is the birth of a lion cub. Oh, and some of Warrington got left without water for a day.

Elsewhere in the UK, life goes on - shootings, stabbings, robberies, political rows, famous people dying...

Move along, people. There's nothing happening in Cheshire. It's official. Aunty says so.

Summer ends, news coverage resumes?

Perhaps September will see an improvement in terms of the BBC reporting news from Cheshire.

A major story on Thursday about the chemical spillage at Ellesmere Port on the M53 got coverage, as did news of an impending by-election following the death of a councillor.

I see Aunty is still clogging up the Merseyside page with the ongoing McCann saga, though, despite Kate McCann having only the most tenuous connection with Liverpool these days.

Oh, for a dedicated news page for Cheshire...

No news is not good news

August was officially a no-news month on the BBC. Trying to find out what, if anything, has been happening in Cheshire over the last 31 days has been impossible. Other news sources have carried Cheshire news, but not Aunty. Whole weeks have passed in Cestrian silence.

So it was with something akin to shock yesterday to discover that the BBC was reporting on the 22nd (Cheshires) Regiment merger with others in the region. The original story was posted at around 6pm yesterday (the page has been updated today), by which time many of the events around the merger had already taken place. Naturally, this gives no one an opportunity to go along and see what's happening, as much of this was in public. It's not the first time the BBC has decided belatedly to report news so late as to deprive the public of participation.

But some news was better than nothing, we suppose.

Let's hope the reporting rate improves this month.