WHAT is the point of a local newspaper in 2017?

Why, when you can access news via myriad internet sites and social media chatter, would you pay professional reporters to unearth stories in their communities?

The short answer can be found on the front of today’s Echo.

Reports that have exposed corruption in public life have been this paper’s stock-in-trade since the great W T Stead pioneered investigative journalism as the Echo’s editor almost 150 years ago.

Cutbacks at papers are forcing editors nowadays to ditch investigative reporting in favour of cheaper content. Long-running probes, such as those undertaken by our reporters into goings-on at Cleveland Police, cost time and money. But they are worth it.

We are delighted that some of the country’s most eminent judges have come down on the side of a newspaper trying to expose matters
of public interest. This was a victory to be relished by everyone who cares about the freedom of the press. 

Using anti-terror powers to save their own skin was a classic case of Cleveland Police shooting the messenger and attempting to suppress
the truth. Concerns about racism in the force were of obvious public interest. Rather than tackling that issue head on the force went to unlawful lengths to try to cover its embarrassment – a dreadful perversion of priorities.

Life would be so much easier for public bodies if investigative reporting simply withered and died. We cannot allow that to happen.

Just before Stead took over as Northern Echo editor he told a friend that the job offered him “a glorious opportunity of attacking the devil”. 

That is still the case. 

Senior figures at Cleveland Police made diabolical errors of judgement for which they should be held to account.

The Echo will keep asking difficult questions until justice is served. That is the point of a newspaper in 2017.