‘Letters to the Editor’ is an important feature of any local newspaper.
The page which invites readers to comment, have their say and share views about what is or isn’t right about the immediate world around them is an essential way to ensure people have a right to share their experiences.
Ahead of the Love Andover Observer being published for the first time next month, we are inviting people to share their views about the town, its representatives and maybe ask questions which will hold people in positions of power accountable for their actions.
At a time when local media outlets are dissipating – being run from out-of-town locations and part of larger media organisations, at Love Andover HQ, we believe residents and local business owners should have their say. With fewer outlets being based in towns and villages, we are committed to ensuring that Andover has a voice; a voice that is run and owned by people locally.
We fear for accurate and continuous access to information and we have learned that the majority of important information that demands an audience comes not from the local council press office, but from local people.
That’s why we are inviting you to send your Letters to the Editor to us, ahead of this historic launch of a new, free newspaper for Andover and our surrounding villages.
Since 1857 Andover has had a local newspaper, in its time it has been a great source of local information and events. Previously the cumbersome ‘Andover Monthly Advertiser and Illustrated Family Miscellany’, the Andover Advertiser was run from 1876 by the family of James Charles Holmes. The Holmes family ran the Andover Advertiser for 110 years – until 1986.
The paper’s founder Mr John Russell Fox, is honoured in the name of the Wetherspoons pub, situated at the site of the old newspaper building.
As in the mid-19th century, you can still share a pint to catch up on gossip from around the town, but today the prolific use of social media and real-time news means you no longer have to wait a month for the latest edition of your local paper to be printed.
Moreover, use of sites like Facebook and Twitter to share opinion is very much commonplace, but those with intelligible or intelligent comment – those without profanity or grammatical errors – can be ‘algorithmically’ overlooked.
As such, we invite people to use our new print outlet to comment, praise or complain. With 5,000 copies printed and distributed each fortnight from 10th September 2020, we hope that the people of north west Hampshire will use the brand new Love Andover Observer as a way to ensure freedom of expression continues.
Letters to the Editor can be sent by email: editor@loveandover.com or posted to us at:
The Editor
Love Andover Observer
Portland House
55-57 High Street
Andover
SP10 1LP
Love Andover is a community organisation which was set-up to publicise and promote as much of the ‘quiet noise’ from our town as possible. These outlets now include this website (loveandover.com), the town’s local radio station, 95.9FM Andover Radio and the fornightly Love Andover Observer.
The Love Andover Observer is the result of a unique partnership with the experienced team at the Observer Media Group.
