Your Thanet, the final end of another local paper.

Your Thanet newspaper that stopped being printed on paper and became just an e-edition about a year ago has now gone altogether.

I had a bizarre and edifying time phoning up the company that ran this local, I spoke to the news desk and they didn’t know if their paper existed, so I spoke to advertising and they didn’t know either and had to phone me back to tell me it had gone.

I did write a post when the paper edition expired, here it is http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/read-all-about-it-your-thanet-gone-as.html

The picture is of a Ramsgate bookshop and newsagent that closed in 1978, so sort of related.

Well I suppose these things sort of equal out, although on local paper has totally gone Cllr David Green has started a new blog, see http://ramsgate1.blogspot.co.uk/

A great problem that the internet leaves us with is how anyone gets paid for producing any sort of media, most particularly the written word with a fairly limited interest like local news.

Frankly if you have and internet connection there is so much in the way of free media, written, spoken, film, music, that you could never even skim the tip of the iceberg.

The free local papers used to be funded by advertising, with me the main advertising would be old cars and motorbikes, now I just look ebay. 

I will ramble on here if I get time.  

Your Thanet, No News Is, No News.

It looks like Your Thanet has gone altogether, this weeks new e-edition should have appeared on their website, but hasn’t.

I then had a most bizarre telephone conversation about this with the KOS news desk, they told me that they didn’t know if Your Thanet had finished altogether, but would phone me back later with the information.

I wonder if the council are still paying to advertise there and sending them press releases, there is a certain irony at the moment in the council dealing with a local paper that doesn’t appear in any form at all.

Update today’s edition of Your Thanet has now appeared 

Read All About It, Your Thanet, gone as a paper, paper.

Your Thanet newspaper is to stop being printed and will now only retain an e-edition, to me this information constitutes a local news story of some importance, so I was surprised not to find anything about this either in Your Thanet or any of its rival newspapers.

I suppose news about newspapers and journalists could be seen as not quite playing the game, sort of secret news if you like.

The rumour that I heard, that prompted me to write this post, was that they had sacked the Thanet Journalists and the paper would be printed no more.

Like any other Thanet story that I publish on this blog I do my best to verify the accuracy of what I post, so I rang them up, getting a story from a newspaper about that newspaper is a bit strange.

It seems that, yes indeed, a lot of journalists have left or are leaving, but this is called restructuring and yes indeed, paper editions of Your Thanet and the other papers for different Kent regions will no longer be printed on paper.

As far as I can make out this business started out with two journalists and an editor producing The Kent on Sunday newspaper, this won awards and expanded, launched various regional free local papers and was bought by Archant Regional limited.


The underlying question here is something like, with all the local news available for free online, how does anyone get paid for writing anything? When kent on Sunday started out, you could have asked the question, how does anyone get paid for writing for a free paper? The answer to this would have been, from the revenue produced by the advertising in that paper.

Now the answer is much more difficult, because of the internet, some national papers have started charging a subscription for reading their online edition, how this will work in the context of other national papers that are available for free online, is very difficult to understand.

For me what has been wrong with Your Thanet is its similarity to the other local papers combined with a very cautious attitude. They were the first paper to be given the China Gateway, Tesco carrier bag story, see http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com/2008/08/gazunder-leads-with-story-shock.html something I was asked not to post on the blog before they ran it, only to be pretty much gob smacked when the paper came out and the story wasn’t in it.

Reading between the lines, if you can read a paper between the lines that is, their editor has controversial views and the potential for the sort of story that would make people go out of their way to read the paper. I posted last week about the blog post on their website about Thanet Earth see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/01/thanet-earth-success-or-disaster.html when I posted about it, it was published anonymously and now it has the editors name on it see http://www.yourthanet.co.uk/p_148/Article/a_10306/So_what_did_Thanet_Earth_do_for_Thanet? Reading this weeks editorial, also in the same league see the online version http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/koslaunch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=Sa3081tCm5B1&PBID=84956776-5fe0-4064-a733-83aabf1dd4b7&skip= you couldn’t easily be mistaken about who had written the article about Thanet Earth.

Online wise all our local papers make a bit of a mess of things, googling “Thanet newspapers” is a good indicator of what I mean. The Gazette comes up first but the link doesn’t actually lead you to the paper, Your Thanet comes up second and the link, yes, does actually lead to the paper, after that it all falls apart, try googling “Margate newspapers” or “Ramsgate newspapers” to see what I mean. I suppose the person who wrote the newspaper’s website hadn’t ever actually been to Thanet.

It is difficult to tell from any of the local newspaper’s websites how many visitors they get, no counter or statistics are published, so it is difficult to see how they would continue to sell advertising for an exclusively online edition. When local papers try to sell me advertising circulation is usually their main selling point.

The only criteria that I can realistically use to gauge how many people read the local papers online is the number of comments they get, which seems to less than this blog. Having said that they don’t make it easy to comment, irritating word verification and so on and if you do comment you don’t usually get a reply from the journalist who wrote the article.


Worst of all though are their feeds, these are the invisible internet codes that are used for the “latest posts on other blogs” thingy on my sidebar, the Your Thanet one feeds all of the newspaper group’s stories for the whole of Kent.

The modern world, the internet and other factors are having an adverse effect on our community. We have lost many of our shops and now one of our newspapers, the shops products can often be found cheaper online, the local news free online, but the social cost is high.

I will ramble on about this if I get a chance.

Your Thanet on youtube

I have just noticed that Your Thanet has started posting on youtube only 2 videos so far here they are.

The Iaido club in Broadstairs show off their skills. The club is looking for new members to ensure the future of the martial art in Thanet. Full story: http://www.yourthanet.co.uk




YourThanet reporter Tom Betts answers a few questions from DJ Amy Burridge as the KIng Ethelbert School in Birchington launches its new radio station, ElectroFusion. He was one of the first guests ...

Your Thanet

I have just been reading Your Thanet and can recommend today’s edition, big article on China Gateway and several other issues that have been of concern locally are covered.

Of special interest to bloggers this weeks yourthanetblogger is Bertie Biggles and Simon Moores gets some pretty heated responses to his yourthanetbloggering on the letters pages.

Click here to read Your Thanet