IT’S a fact that digital technology has tended to downgrade the power of local media in recent years.

Every now and again, though, we are made to realise the importance of regional newspapers; last week was one such time. Then, the culmination of a long and determined battle by the Bolton News to disclose the identity of a local councillor who’d failed to pay his Council tax resulted in his identity being revealed, in print.

Forget the politics and even individuals here, the crux of the campaign was more important than that.

This newspaper had fought a three-year battle against local and national bureaucracy to defend the right of everyone to know information that should originally have been in the public domain.

It wasn’t an easy journey for the Bolton News’ editor, senior staff or the reporters involved. It took dogged determination to negotiate a way through the red tape thrown in their way, and an adherence to this country’s basic principles of a free media.

This was not done for any financial gain. In fact, overall, the paper was probably out of pocket. What it did reveal, however, was the genuine importance of having local journalists prepared to fight for something that mattered to local people - the truth.

I know it might sound almost precocious to talk about the value of freedom of speech and freedom of information when social media disseminates information in a heartbeat. But this wasn’t just defending a principle, it was actually having the skills and knowledge of how and where to fight this particular battle.

Oh, yes, I know, I’m just a local journalist myself. But I’ve been a freelance for the past 10 years and I can honestly say, standing a little way back from the Bolton News, that I was extremely proud of the newspaper and its reporters when I read those headlines and finally learned the identity of the councillor involved.

Basic journalistic skills, determination, professional standards and dogged investigation were all involved in large amounts in unveiling the truth here. This is not the first time for the Bolton News and, hopefully, it won’t be the last.

So the next time you hear that local newspapers are dead in the face of digital media, please bear in mind that information still needs to be relayed by individuals. And that local journalism is often vital in protecting any community’s interests.