BBC Trust Chair: 'Not a Huge Appetite' From Press for Local Journalists Plan

BBC Trust chair Rona Fairhead has admitted there is “not a huge appetite” from local newspapers for the corporation’s proposals to boost the sector by funding 100 local journalists.

Fairhead said the BBC and its commercial rivals had to find common ground to tackle the emerging “democratic deficit” in local news and a “weakening of democracy itself” following the closure of 300 local papers in the last decade.