Recent job cuts across the regional newspaper network have accelerated the need for an online business model to be found.

But are regional newspapers helping themselves to survive in the current economic climate with the content that they provide?

I ask this following the Lancashire Evening Post’s front page spread on Barrack Obama winning the US election, shown in the picture on a news stand in Sharoe Green.

It’s a story that has seen one journalist fall foul of his editors – the Birmingham Mail’s Adam Smith filmed a video, that’s well worth a watch, while across the Atlantic following the election. Apparently, he’s set to lose his pay-off after taking voluntary redundancy.

Is it just me that questions the presence of Obama on the front page of the supposedly “local” rag? Do we really need the LEP to cover the story in such depth, considering the coverage the nationals have given it? Yes, it’s nice to be aware of it, and there is a place for national and international news in some regional newspapers, particularly dailies, but the primary function of a local is surely to carry stories and issues that affect local people?

You could argue that the US election does that. You could also say that maybe the LEP was taking advantage of its position as an evening paper to cover the full story, seeing as the nationals didn’t have the opportunity to do so until the following morning.

Maybe I’m alone in my viewpoint. But I’d sooner see a front page tackling some of the issues of the local area, than one on a US election that generally speaking, does not have a massive direct effect on Preston or the surrounding area. A story perhaps, on the safety of Moor Park, something which several people expressed concerns about to me during a vox pop yesterday.

Soon, local news may be lost, particularly in newspaper form. ITV are merging a number of its regional news TV channels, newspapers are cutting hundreds of jobs, and the emergence of online as a platform, which covers everything for free, is causing journalists a real headache.

Newspaper sales may well not have been affected by an “Obama” LEP front page, but maybe the direction of regional news is the wrong one. In their search for improving revenue and stabilising the industry, the regional’s should explore the basic approach and go back to doing what it does best. Covering local issues for local people. They can get their national and international stories elsewhere.

Sure, you might say they can get their local news online, but can they? Press releases and user generated content do not inform and entertain as quality journalism does, and the remaining news publications have a duty to ensure that local news isn’t lost to the PR machine.