Patrick Harvie: P&J’s HIE campaign shows importance of local press

Reporting and scrutiny provided by local and regional press have an important role to play in our democracy, whether online or in print.

The P&J’s recent campaign to “Keep Highlands and Islands Enterprise Local” was an excellent example of how local journalism can bring together communities and their elected representatives to push an essentially local issue up the national agenda.

Local journalism also plays an important role in highlighting issues of national significance which have a local dimension, and it’s heartening that the P&J continues to have correspondents looking for North-east and Highlands and Islands implications from events at Holyrood and Westminster.

My Highlands and Islands colleague John Finnie has certainly received good coverage in the P&J for his long-running campaign to stop ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Moray Firth, and his proposed member’s bill to give children equal protection from assault has also featured in the paper.

Over the coming months and years, Brexit will put at stake vital social and environmental protections with implications for people across the North of Scotland, and I look forward to the P&J scrutinising that process.