Northgate 1 - Slug 0

A (very) small cheer for Aunty covering the first demolition in the Northgate redevelopment scheme, which we might add is deeply unpopular with Cestrians.

Nul points for failing to cover the latest on the Glass Slug, an equally unpopular development in Chester. The Glass Slug is a regular front-page story in the Chester Chronicle, as it was yet again on Friday 27 July - this time, the news was that the Tory council administration, which won the local elections in May on a promise of scrapping this deeply unpopular proposed development, might renege on their election manifesto. Front-page news in the Chron, not a whisper on BBC News Online. No change there, then...

One Aunty couldn't avoid

Cheshire splits in two...

Yes, even the BBC would have had a slight problem not reporting the fact that Cheshire County Council is to go forever and be replaced by two unitary authorities. Although nothing was reported on what the citizens of our county think of such a move (hint: not a popular idea).

No, just the straight facts and nothing more.

We presume that the loss of a single county-wide authority will merely give the Beeb yet another excuse to continue splitting Cheshire news coverage across a number of non-Cheshire pages.

Today's top headlines

Ok, we were wrong about the Royal visit to Chester - the BBC did indeed cover it.

But where was the report on the latest crime statistics? The Merseyside figures were, predictably, on the Merseyside news page, but not the Cheshire ones. Not even tucked away at the foot of the Merseyside stats. Puzzled, we had a look at the Manchester news page. After all, half of the Cheshire news coverage ends up there if it ever gets posted. Hmm, no sign. But then the Greater Manchester crime stats weren't reported there either. What was going on?

Ah, wait a minute - BBC News Online says Cheshire doesn't exist. Therefore it can't report crime statistics for a non-existent county.

Except that at 6.30pm we were watching the regional news on BBC North West Tonight with Gordon Burn, which managed to report the Cheshire crime stats...

You can wait all year...

...for a story on Wilmslow. Then, like buses, two come along at once.

Wilmslow, that leafy affluent corner of our fair county, is fast turning into a hotbed of violent crime, it appears.

First, Kerry Katona is held at knifepoint. Then, a golfer is attacked with a hockey stick.

Interestingly, the second story was positioned on both the Manchester and Merseyside news pages on BBC Online, while Katona only made it to the Manchester page, despite being from Warrington in west Cheshire. Wilmslow, of course, is so far east it's practically in Manchester. If Katona wasn't so famous that she was a headline story on the entertainment page too, we might have missed it.

Hijacked headlines

We swear, in all the months we've been running this campaign, much as we want to see Cheshire news get reported we do not want Z-list celebrities blocking up the cybersphere and preventing real news from being reported.

If you're wondering what we're wittering on about, it's Kerry Katona being held at knife-point. Not that we wish Ms Katona any ill-will, just that we think there are more important things happening in the news.

Zoos again

According to Aunty, nothing has happened at all in Cheshire over the last 10 days. Monitoring of the Merseyside pages, where news from the west of our county is routinely dumped (if the BBC bothers to report anything at all), shows that only Liverpool stories have been published.

Until today, when we have yet another zoo story...

There's no doubt that Chester Zoo does amazing work, but there's a lot more going on in Cheshire than research into mandrills.

Here's just a few of today's lead stories in the Chester Chronicle:

- Post-box bomber jailed for possessing child porn (child porn stories are normally hot fodder for the Beeb). There are two other major child porn news items in the Chronicle today.

- speculation over the future of Chester City Council's chief executive officer (lots of rumours and whiffs of conflict with the new Tory administration - usually good for BBC coverage).

- announcement of planned visit by Charles and Camilla to Chester, including itinerary (wonder if the BBC will report this after the fact?).

- University of Chester defends its reputation after The Guardian accuses it of being on a secret list of educational establishments at risk of financial failure (Aunty normally loves stories like that).

An experiment

The BBC in Manchester has started a BBC Manchester Blog. It's an interesting mix of local (ie BBC in Manchester) news and coverage of some of the Manchester-based blogs.

We are running this blog entry to link to it (and we've put a link in the side menu too) to see just how Manchester-centric this BBC blog is. Is it limited strictly to Manchester blogs only? Does it cover blogs from elsewhere in the north-west? (Careful scrutiny shows a Liverpool blog has been reviewed.)

More importantly, by linking to it, will the BBC Manchester blog link back to this one? And if so, will it give some recognition to this campaign?

Watch this space...

No terrorists in Cheshire

Like 99% of the population, we have been following the news about the failed bombings in London and Glasgow by terrorists.

Interestingly, Cheshire has cropped up as a location in the police reports as they get on the trail. It was announced that two people had been arrested on the M6 in Cheshire. The map further down the page is intriguing, attached as it is to a list of events and locations. Cheshire is mentioned on the list below the map, but is not actually shown on the map. Possibly because the BBC does not know where Cheshire is...

This is a time when having a dedicated news page for our county comes into its own. It may be that the police were not in a position to give out operational details of the M6 arrests but it would have been useful to have a separate report on them on a Cheshire news page.

Going back a couple of days to Thursday and the London bombs, sharp-eyed surfers may have spotted one or both reports on a suspect car in Warrington, tucked away on the Merseyside page. We were rather surprised to see this, given that we'd been watching BBC News 24 on the tv almost all day and no mention had been made in the TV coverage. Again, this was an important Cheshire story. Ok, it turned out to be a false alarm, but at a time of heightened fear across the country some more prominence for this story in general would have been useful, not only as part of the national picture, but also for people around the region of Warrington who could have found broader coverage on this story vital in terms of making travel decisions.