🚨New on @_TheLondoner: David Lammy's special advisor Ben Judah wrote a strange and disturbing book about London, littered with racial stereotypes, implausible quotes and obvious falsehoods. How did it get published? @_TheLondoner Judah now holds an influential position in the Labour government and lots of reviewers said this book opened their eyes or changed how they see London. So we thought we should take a look into it. @AndrewKersley and I have been trying to fact check key passages for weeks.

🚨🚨 Extraordinary analysis by @DomPonsford that should set off alarm bells in Westminster. It shows how local news in the UK has utterly collapsed.

In revenue terms the sector is "around 7x smaller" today compared to 2007. And employs *6,000 fewer* local journalists. By analysing the three major local media groups, @pressgazette shows the "colossal decline" in this critical sector.

👉 employed around local journalists 9,000 in 2007. Down to 3,000 in 2022

👉 collective revenue was £2.4bn, now down to around £590m from their regional brands

Flying back from holiday in Romania I just read the eye-opening, at times brutal new @EndersAnalysis report about "the perfect storm engulfing local media". It's a brilliant, constructive analysis of "the single most important media in any well-functioning democracy". Threddd 🧵 The stakes are high, as the authors acknowledge. "In plain English: a decline in local media is a risk to democracy itself." It's why I think every MP should be sent this report - I've read lots of these things and this is the best UK one so far. Share it endersanalysis.com/reports/signs-…

Uplifting story amidst the gloom: The 18-month-old @sheffieldtrib reached 1000 subs today. That means along with @ManchesterMill and @liverpoolpost, there are now 3,500 people paying for high quality northern journalism from publications that *didn't exist* before the pandemic. That's around £250,000 worth of reader revenue funding brilliant staff writers, lots of talented freelancers across the North and the growing costs of our in-depth reporting.

What kind of journalism can that produce? Here are some of my favourite 2022 stories 🎄

This story says 82% of critical care beds in Greater Manchester are occupied but for some reason it doesn't mention what a normal occupancy % is. Here are the adult critical care bed numbers for October last year:

Manchester Uni Trust: 87% occupied
Salford: 97%
Tameside: 100%

https://twitter.com/BenQuinn75/status/1317914747585560577

According to NHS data, the occupancy of adult critical care beds in Greater Manchester at the end of October 2019 was .... 83.6%.

*How* is that not in the story?

(Data here england.nhs.uk/statistics/sta…)

Speaker at this People’s Assembly rally says Theresa May ‘should shoot herself’. Uncomfortable to hear that kind of rhetoric, especially after the week we’ve had. Waiting to speak next (on the right of the pic) is John McDonnell One of the organizers says the speaker was Weyman Bennett from Stand Up To Racism. He said May should shoot herself because of her role in the ‘Hostile Environment’ policy