Would you buy CBC's News Central if it weren't free?

The Guardian newspaper ran a piece this last week criticising local authority publications as being propaganda organs for the incumbent party running the local council, which also take valued revenue away from local papers.

They are quite right of course. That said, I'd feel more sympathetic to local papers if ever they were to field a reporter to attend the odd Council meeting or some Overview and Scrutiny ones. There's never been one at the press desk in my year in office, which is a pity as there have been a couple of humdingers this year.

Firstly, when we Liberal Democrats voted against the Tory proposals to freeze Councillor allowances, as we wanted to support the recommendation of the independent panel for a cut, and secondly, only last week when a number of Tories broke ranks to vote against the Council proposals on a number of proposals including proposed boundary changes.

The News Central issue was taken up by Beds on Sunday, although the CBC answers were less than fulsome, for while publication costs are now covered by News Central taking ads, overheads including staff time apparently are not.

When asked, constituents say they appreciate News Central, but that is not the way to get at the truth of how much people value it, of course. A much better test would be to make it available to buy at cost.

Would you buy CBC's News Central if it weren't free? Do share your views.

In case you missed it, here is the exchange between CBC and Beds on Sunday:

Bedfordshire on Sunday, Can I have a break down on how much News Central Costs please?

Cllr Richard Stay, Deputy Leader at Central Bedfordshire Council said: "Making sure our residents are fully informed about the services the Council provides and the way we spend their money is vitally important and News Central magazine is a convenient and very cost effective way of doing this. There was a set up cost for News Central in the first year, but this publication now carries no financial burden to the tax payer as costs are offset by advertising."

Figures:
Costs for April 2009/April 2010: £220,000
For April 2010/11: The first edition cost £14,000 but this cost is now offset by advertising and so the rest of the editions will be cost neutral.