Why is The London Weekly claiming a circulation in "the central belt" when the central belt is in Scotland? The answer appears to be found in the media pack of the Metro newspaper in Scotland, which was making the same circulation claims as The London Weekly is – in 2007.

This detail of the investigation into The London Weekly was first mentioned by chrisunlimited in the comments to a Guardian article, but I thought it worth blogging here as we've now cached the Metro's media pack and screengrabs of the salient passages in that and on The London Weekly's website. They're included in this post for your perusal…

Hello there.

Well, I thought I’d send out an update on the latest happenings on Help Me Investigate. So here it is:

We’re looking at doing some mobile things with Help Me Investigate. As part of that we need to know what networks people are currently on – so please answer a simple question at http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/2750023/ to help.

On the site there’s been a huge amount of activity around the investigation into The London Weekly. Some of the details unearthed were mentioned on this week’s Guardian Media Talk podcast (around the 18:30 mark), and there’s more detail on the investigation on this post by James Ball, as well as two earlier posts he wrote: an open letter to The London Weekly and this one. Judith Townend at Journalism.co.uk published this overview of some of the findings. And I also blogged a roundup on the Online Journalism Blog.

The key challenge now is finding documentary evidence and witnesses to back up what’s going on. All help welcome.

Another investigation that’s unearthing some useful results is Hannah Flynn’s investigation into the availability of hormonal contraception on the NHS – Hannah has put together a map indicating the differing availability on her blog.

If you’re looking for something to get your teeth into, challenges that need taking on on other investigations include:

• Writing up a summary of an FOI response on this investigation into a car share scheme
• Creating a tipsheet for researching the funding of an organisation on this investigation into the Global Warming Policy Foundation
• And finding out why the University of Liverpool is seeking to silence blogs critical of its Vice Chancellor?

That’s it. Don’t forget to answer the anonymous poll!

Paul Bradshaw
Founder, Help Me Investigate http://helpmeinvestigate.com
Follow HMI on Twitter http://twitter.com/helpmeinvestig8
Help Me Investigate fan page on Facebook 
Help Me Investigate Facebook group

The investigation into The London Weekly was mentioned on this week's Guardian Media Talk podcast (around the 18:30 mark).

Hannah Flynn's investigation into the availability of hormonal contraception on the NHS is gathering pace, with results from a number of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).

Read Hannah's report and view a map indicating the differing availability on her blog.

And here's the link where you can do it…

http://www.power2010.org.uk/votes/entry/expand-the-scope-of-the-freedom-of-information-act

Here's a brief video tutorial on how and why to edit your profile on Help Me Investigate to add links, a photo and tags.

Three more local newspapers have been covered as part of the investigation into local council coverage.

“Perhaps what the Cotswold Journal shows best is that it must be pretty much impossible to get adequate council coverage in the newspaper given the limited staffing and the large area the paper covers. Attending county, district and parish or town council meetings in four different counties can’t be feasible – one person can only be in one place at one time.

“Hence a reliance on press releases or short, less detailed, stories. Where there are longer stories, human interest seems to be a factor – profiles are popular. Often, the council perspective seems to be a last minute insertion or an extra quote, rather than being the nub of the story.”

Ed Walker has been looking at council coverage in the Lancashire Evening Post?as part of?the investigation into 'How much local council coverage is there in your local paper?' He writes:

"I found that there were 35 pages devoted to news on 23/11, 25/11 and 27/11 and of these 6.25 pages were given over to ?council reporting?.

"Like others I?ve been finding there is little reporting of council meetings, more stories are created from council press releases and then a few quotes from councillors. It?s also not clear when these councillors were saying these quotes, although the councillors title and ward are always attached."

The investigation into How much local council coverage is there in your local newspaper? now has a handy spreadsheet, thanks to Chie Elliott.

The spreadsheet – available here – will calculate the percentage of any newspaper’s coverage that is based on monitoring the local council. 

Chie writes:

“I have set it up so that every time anyone edits anything I’ll be notified. If you accidentally delete anything, don’t panic. You can either go to Edit and click Undo or, if the error was more extensive, Go to File > Revision history and keep clicking “Older” until you get to the version you wanted. Then click OK.”

She also says she is happy to help if you have any questions or problems.

The investigation has so far looked at The Brighton Argus and Sussex Express, the Birmingham Post and Mail, and the Darlington and Stockton Times, while the Lancashire Evening Post is in progress.

If you can help by looking at any other paper – or inviting someone who could – please join the investigation.