Islington Council publishes a newspaper 'Islington Now'. An FOI request from one L Barnett on 'What do they know' yields some fascinating information.
Islington Now is produced ten times a year with 97,000 copies distributed. £273,000 was spent on the paper in 2008-2008 with £251,000 budgeted for 2009-2010 As far as i can make our from the FOI request, the paper raised only £14,000 from external advertising, with another £135,000-odd apparently being raised in an internal money-go-round where the council charges it's own divisions to advertise in its own paper. The council employs a full time staff member to produce the paper at a full cost of £46,000 per annum.
The following phrases occur in Islington Now's editorial policy:
'Articles also need to reflect the council’s key messages, and the magazine has sections that enable us to do this…'Messages should be positive but realistic – we have to be honest with readers and invite them to engage in dialogue with us.We avoid council speak so the magazine is not perceived as propaganda '
Catherine West the new Council Leader has said that 'there will be a few changes to this magazine'. Will be interesting to see what happens – would be nice to see the council reaching out more to local websites such as this – i have never once had Islington Council's press people contact me or comment in the comments – have a go now folks….
Kings Cross Environment 
Expect they will probably contact you to make you remove the logo – that or talk to the ISP host.
I’ll do the job for LBI for just half the budget and still be quids in!!!!!
I’ve always thought this was a terrible waste of paper.
I agree. I have not seen any evaluation to show if the magazine gets read or if any of its editorial matters a jot to anyone. It’s a dreary faux-happy bit of local authority boosterism and it looks like it. I doubt whether anyone takes its “news” at all seriously. Even worse, I doubt if anyone diligently scours the statutory notices pages which account for the “advertising income” claimed by the Council. Personally I put the damn thing straight into the cecycle bin. And I’m one of the weird people who really ought to be reading it.