End of local papers means dodgy firms not held to account

LOCAL newspaper closures led to a sharp increase in businesses breaking the law as they no longer come under scrutiny from journalists, a Harvard study found.

The decline of daily and weekly titles has seen companies become more brazen in illegal misconduct with increases in environmental offences, discrimination and consumer breaches. Journalists

on these publications are often the first port of call for whistle blowers that make employers behave more responsibly, according to the Harvard Business School research.

Jonas Heese and Gerado Perez-cavazos studied more than 310,000 offences across the US which were then narrowed down to 26,450 violations among more than 10,000 businesses or branches of major firms over a 17-year period. The researchers found a 15.2 per cent increase in the number of penalties in areas after the closure of a local newspaper. Thirty-three titles, both daily and weekly, shut down over the study period.

The pair noted the increase could be higher as the study only relates to those offences that end with regulators or courts penalising the company and do not include undiscovered violations.

Offences collated by the researchers ranged from unfair dismissals and discrimination to environmental violations and consumer rip-offs.

The study reported: “Local newspapers may be especially effective in discovering the misconduct of local firms because of their proximity to local sources such as employees and local suppliers. The closure of a local newspaper weakens the monitoring of corporate misconduct.”

The findings were published in the