Woeful reporting from Walsall Advertiser

by danielbarker on 15 June, 2015

The Walsall Advertiser’s reporting of the latest change in administration at Walsall Council was in my opinion pretty woeful.
For one thing, they named Cllr Doreen Shires – who has been a councillor for over 35 years – as Cllr Diane Shires. Secondly, they reported the way the Lib.Dems voted as “surprising”. Clearly they had not done any research. Cllr Ian Shires stated in a blog article on May 23rd the following:

“The Liberal Democrats have made our position clear, given that neither of the two larger groups have a clear majority and that the Tories are in the driving seat at Westminster we will not be voting to remove the current Labour Administration. We will vote to maintain the status quo keeping Labour in the driving seat at a time when we need to see every effort to protect vital services.”

I reported this statement in my blog on May 26th, so that’s at least two airings of our position on social media that should have rendered the way the Lib.Dem. group voted ‘unsurprising’. The fact that they didn’t report Cllr Ian Shires’ explanation on the night why the group was voting the way it did compounds the error. They actually edited a summary of what was said to make us sound defensive.

The problem for the Advertiser is that they have nailed their political colours to the mast. Following their blatant promotion of the Tory candidate for Walsall South, this article led on how Cllr Mike Bird was going to fight against Government cuts. Perhaps the ‘mistakes’ of this article weren’t mistakes at all but were deliberate. The problem is, unless the Advertiser does something to prove its impartiality, readers will become more and more cynical about its political coverage.

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