Reading the local newspaper

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

I subscribed to the local paper after a rumour about the swimming pool spread through our neighbourhood messages. The headline online said closure was certain; the actual council proposal was more complicated. A reporter attended the meeting, asked questions and explained what had and had not been decided. The article was less dramatic than the rumour and considerably more useful.

Not every issue is exciting. Some pages concern planning applications or committee decisions whose importance becomes clear only later. I used to mistake that quietness for irrelevance. Now I think of local reporting as a form of attention the town would otherwise struggle to maintain. The paper makes mistakes and deserves criticism when it does. Paying for it does not require loyalty to every opinion it prints. It means recognising that somebody must do the unglamorous work of finding out before the rest of us can argue responsibly about what is happening.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Sir, your newspaper's account of the proposed market changes leaves several questions unanswered. It repeats the chairman's assurances at length but gives little space to the stallholders who will bear the new charges. A local paper should know more than the public notice and inquire further than the speech prepared for its benefit.

I value the journal and have read it for years. Precisely for that reason, I object when acquaintance appears to soften scrutiny. The editor may dine with a councillor without allowing the reader to inherit the councillor's confidence unexamined. Our town is small enough for people to meet frequently, but its decisions are not therefore beyond dispute. Print the reasons on each side, check the figures and correct errors plainly. A newspaper serves its neighbours best when it remembers that being neighbourly is not the same as being agreeable to those who hold office.

Refer to the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on the role of local newspapers and how they convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence from both sources.