Seb Coe

Lord Coe heralds local press for telling Olympic story

Luke Jacobs Friday, June 1, 2012
8:00 AM

Lord Seb Coe, the chairman of Locog – the organising committee of the Games – paid tribute to the local press as part of Local Newspaper Week.

Each year, hundreds of daily and weekly regional newspapers join forces to showcase their place in the community, something which will be of huge importance in the year of the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee.

Lord Coe said: The Olympic and Paralympic Games are the perfect local story. I have said this at least 100 times since we started on our journey to the London 2012 Games almost a decade ago.

Though the Games can only be awarded to one city, in our case it is London, every local newspaper can have its own story to tell, connecting their readers to what is being trumpeted as this year’s biggest global story happening right here in the UK.

I am a product of local newspapers and have always been an avid reader of them.

I was born in London, grew up in the West Midlands and Sheffield, trained in Loughborough and was a local MP in Falmouth.

My longest and most rewarding relationships were those I made during my early days in athletics on the Sheffield Morning Telegraph.

In Sheffield I was featured as the son of the city, in the Loughborough Echo it was world-class training in the town’s university that “won it”.

In Fulham my grandmother was made grandmother of the year by the local newspaper.

When we bid for these Games a decade ago we promised to make these Games UK-wide and it is our local media, particularly local newspapers, that are helping us do this.

They are carrying the stories of the thousands of businesses who have benefited from the Games, the millions of people who are helping to stage the Games.

These stories are brought to life in local papers like the Newham Recorder up and down the country and it is for this reason that I am supporting this year’s Local Newspaper Week.