New Year's Resolution? Buy a paper

Friends, readers, county-people of Northamptonshire, lend me your ears!

Firstly, happy New Year to you all, I hope this first column finds you hale and hearty.  Secondly, I'd like to talk about New Year's resolutions and one that I'd like you all to make please.

I appreciate that if you're reading this I'm probably preaching to the converted, but please spread the word to your family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, people on the bus, in the queue at Asda or Tesco (other supermarkets are also available) - and make it a New Year's resolution to buy a local paper every week.

No, I'm not being paid to say this before anyone suggests that, but I am happy to support the #BuyAPaper campaign which emerged on social media late last year.

Local papers, such as the Northamptonshire Telegraph, are struggling because of a fall in revenue from hard-copy sales and advertising.

More and more people are just accessing their news online from various sources, so don't buy an actual paper.

But the NT and Chron websites, which I'm sure that everyone in the county looks at on a regular basis, wouldn't be the same without the quality writing of the journalists who have been properly trained and write the stories which appear weekly in those papers.

In this era of fake news, local newspapers are a source you can trust to be truthful, report on what's happening in your area, and hold our local councils and politicians to account when needed - something we all know in Northamptonshire to be absolutely vital.

So please, buy a paper every week and make sure that the great work of these local publications can continue.

As respected politician and academic Toomas Hendrik Ilves said:  "Fake news is cheap to produce.  Genuine journalism is expensive."

But at just £1.55 per week - and cheaper if you subscribe - you can get genuine quality journalism for less than the price of a coffee, and you can support a paper that's been standing up for your local community since 1897.