There is a temptation, when you read about holidaymakers stranded in a luxury resort, to roll your eyes and move on.
Abu Dhabi is upmarket, of course. The immaculate hotels look like something from a glossy brochure. The weather is warm. To plenty of us, it still feels like an “other world” problem.
Until you actually listen to what happened.
I sat down with Zoe Rawson after she and her husband Simon finally got home to Patrington on Friday, March 13, and if anyone thinks that ordeal was softened by sunshine and a nice swimming pool, they have not understood it.
Zoe was describing phones screaming out air raid alerts that override silent mode, day and night. She was describing the thud and crack of interceptions overhead, whether debris is going to fall where you are standing, whether you are about to be told to run for shelter again. She was describing a packed airport, confusion and the hard truth that you can be in a “beautiful” place and still be living with fear.
None of it really hits home until someone from your own patch looks you in the eye and tells you all this. It is local journalism that makes this stuff real. Not in a sensational way, but just in the honest, human translation of world events into what they mean for someone you might work with, or live next door to, or pass in Tesco.
And that brings me to something else that matters, even if it sounds dry on paper: the Government’s newly published Local Media Strategy.
It was launched on Tuesday, March 17, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has called it “the first action plan to back local news in a generation”.
The headline message from the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, is blunt: “the future of news is local”, and she has also described local journalism as “essential to a cohesive country”, while stressing this is “the start – not the end point”.
You do not have to agree with every line to recognise what sits behind it: an admission that something has gone badly wrong in the way our country gets its information.
The strategy includes a Local News Fund worth up to £12 million over two years, with £6 million in the first year and up to another £6 million in the second, aimed at digital innovation and filling so-called “news deserts”.
Social media can make a rumour feel more “real” than a verified report simply because it is louder, faster and repeated more often, and don’t even get me started on the proliferation of AI fakery.
In that environment, trust becomes a scarce resource and we’ve been collateral damage in all this, often being told by people that they “don’t trust the media”.
And it is not just national politics where that matters. It is potholes. Planning rows. Road closures. Fly-tipping. Care services. The unglamorous stuff that people sometimes only notice when something has already gone wrong.
When local journalism is missing, accountability weakens. The government action plan itself makes that link between the decline of local journalism and a rise in misinformation and reduced trust.
So I welcome any serious attempt to stop local news from being hollowed out further. The NUJ has welcomed the strategy as a “positive start” but also warns it comes after “decades of damage” and says there is still a huge power imbalance between publishers and tech giants.
That last point is crucial. Local journalism did not collapse because reporters forgot how to report. It collapsed because the business model underneath it was kicked to pieces while advertising money flowed elsewhere and audiences were trained to expect news for free, served up by platforms that profit from content without producing it.
If the new Local News Fund genuinely helps publishers modernise, collaborate and reach audiences better, good. If government advertising is directed towards trusted local outlets rather than vanishing into the online void, good. If media literacy is treated as essential rather than optional, even better.
But this has to be more than a one-off announcement. Details matter: who can access the funding, what counts as innovation, how smaller independents are protected from being elbowed out, and whether public notices remain transparent and accessible to everyone, not just those who know where to click.