Today’s Media Guardian seems designed to provoke the sort of mood swings normally associated with manic depression. On the front page John Slattery’s piece ‘A degree of despair,’ warns of the increasingly steep uphill struggle to get a first toehold in the news industry. Then, on page 2, Steve Hewlett’s column ‘A local solution on a national scale,’ offers a realistic vision of how local reporting may be saved and strengthened through Independently Financed News Consortia. I have been involved in discussions around some of the ideas Hewlett mentions. There is a very long way to go, but there is growing awareness among politicians and regulators that allowing independent local news reporting to die would damage democracy.  It is a start.