It used to be the case that local journalists were not interested in council meetings, and certainly not scrutiny meetings. Thinking back ten or even five years, the level of press interest in council business was minimal. Major council decisions have still been covered (often idiosyncratically) but the hollowing out of the local press – the closing of many titles and the concentration of journalists in regional hubs which may be at a substantial geographical remove to the area on which they are reporting – has had implications for this kind of reporting. This is, however, changing. There are two ...