Salford Star criticises council over failure to fund printing costs

The Salford Star has criticised its local council's decision to deny the community magazine funding to support its printing costs.

The Star has made three applications to cover half of its total print costs of £3,500 to three of Salford Council's Community Committees, which are responsible for a devolved budget that they can decide how to spend. Because of a lack of funds the non-profit Star has been an online-only publication for the last year, but previously delivered a free, printed magazine to homes in East Salford.

Any publications funded by the council or its committees must meet guidelines to prevent breaches of the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act, Age Discrimination legislation and libel laws, but should also not be "of an overtly political nature".

The Star applied to East Salford Community Committee, the area where it distributes 8,000 copies, for £2,500. But at a meeting late last week, the East Salford Committee turned down the magazine's bid. According to an internal report from the meeting, as reported by the Star and seen by Journalism.co.uk, the application was rejected on grounds that it is overly political in nature and is "perceived by many to be a satirical publication which tends to criticise authority in partic [sic] singling out Salford Council and individual councillors".

An official statement from the council says the Star did not meet the criteria, but does not specify which guidelines it failed to match up to.

"We received our first application from a publication for community committee funding in 2007 and as a result we put in place some guidelines so that we can demonstrate fairness and transparency when deciding on funding applications," Sue Lightup, Salford City Council's strategic director for community, health and social care said in the statement to Journalism.co.uk.

"These are the same guidelines we're using today and all applications for funding are considered as part of a formal process involving the relevant community committees. In this case, the East Salford Community Committee decided that the Salford Star did not meet the criteria and therefore did not accept the application for funding."

Additional applications of £500 each have been made to the Community Committees for Claremont and Weaste and Ordsall and Langworthy. Minutes from the Claremont and Weaste meeting screengrabbed by the Star suggest that the magazine's application has been refused on the advice of a senior officer.

The Star has said this conflicts with council's official statement that the applications did not meet the guidelines for allocating funding to community publications. The title can appeal the council's decision, but cannot afford to mount a legal challenge, its editor Stephen Kingston told Journalism.co.uk.

The Star sent a letter to the council's community committees earlier this month setting out its compliance with the guidelines.

"The magazine does have an agenda - to give the community a voice and to hold public bodies up to account. We would argue that this is something worth striving for, and that the concept of empowerment is included in many council documents. The council might not like the voices or the empowerment but we do not believe that this makes the magazine 'overtly political' in any way," it said.

The title is not the first to challenge publications produced or funded by local authorities - yesterday Hammersmith and Fulham Council was forced to defend its free paper h&f news following a campaign against it by regional newspaper group Trinity Mirror.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).