Our freedom and democracy depends on a strong, thriving press - Bernard Ingham

It never occurred to me then that the brave new world I thought I was entering might be a graveyard industry. Now I wonder.

First, the Housing Minister, Robert Jenrick urges us all the buy newspapers and then the Royal Family pay tribute to my trade from national titles to local and regional outlets “making a difference to their communities”.

Meanwhile, the editor of this newspaper, among others, calls for public support through subscriptions and advertising as the coronavirus strikes another blow against newsprint.

Let’s face it, there is only so much newspapers can take after their hammering over the last 30 years.

“Leave some newsprint for us”, my clients used to say.

Then came the computer age stealing ever more advertising and websites encouraging people to read their packaged news rather than journals.

Indeed, you might argue there is now a conspiracy against print as we are all, regardless of age, urged to go online. It’s got so bad that you can’t pay printed money into a bank in Hebden Bridge.

They have all upped sticks while newspapers, operating on much tighter purse strings, still try, as the Royal Family recognises, to serve their communities.

All this is bad enough, but the situation is much worse than that. If newspapers disappear our very democracy is undermined. For me, radio and television are no substitute for the written word.

From broadcasting you get an impression – and an often prejudiced one these days – whereas from newspapers, however partisan, you can get to grips with information, study it and make up your own mind.

And the more healthy, profitable competing newspapers we have the better we are informed from parish pump to Parliament.

Some may accuse me of hypocrisy after my turbulent relationship with the media during my stint as Margaret Thatcher’s Press secretary.

All I can say is that I recognised they – regional and local as well as national press – had a job to do and sought to help them with facts, not invention, conspiracy theory or over-interpretation. We were still on partying terms after 11 years.

Today, as a newspaperman to the last, I have not even a passing acquaintance with Facebook, Twitter, etc, but they seem to operate without a newspaper’s constraints of libel and pornography laws.

We can’t have one law for the rich and another for the poor.

My purpose now is not to preserve the printed press for the sake of it but to safeguard our freedom in a healthy democracy.

We have had a lucky escape with Jeremy Corbyn now a busted flush.

The hard Left does not believe in freedom but control. Had he ever secured office he would have ruthlessly exploited an impoverished press by threatening boycotts they could not sustain if they did not toe the line. I have some experience of this approach.

Just imagine what effect Big Brother watching us would have on the free flow of information, ideas and comment.

Meanwhile, Russia and China wage cyber war against the democracies with fake news and interference in elections – a threat systematically investigated and exposed by newspapers.

That – and the internet – is a global threat. Nationally, we are assailed by the likes of Extinction Rebellion, a proliferation of narrow-minded special interest groups and the snowflake generation telling us not just what to think but how.

They also seek to enforce their will, too often with the active support of empty-noddled academics and the police who, under some chief constables, seem more concerned about “hate crime” than chasing real criminals.

We may not yet have reached George Orwell’s 1984 but let us not kid ourselves: we are faced with unprecedented threats to our blessed freedom.

That freedom is best preserved by a strong, vigorous media – and especially by a healthy, profitable Press reaching down from Fleet Street to local weeklies.

As a democrat I long for the Press’s return to health.

As a Yorkshireman exiled in the soft south I think all this talk of a Yorkshire region would be pretty meaningless without a daily newspaper.

So, support home industry – The Yorkshire Post I first served in 1952.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor