STANDING on a picket line in Sutton, south London, with a great bunch of (mostly young) journalists, I felt proud and honoured to be the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

They had voted for a 12-day strike. Some of them had just started their careers, but they understood exactly why they were leafleting local readers on the high street and soliciting honks from passing vehicles.

These poorly paid reporters and editors were taking a stand and making a sacrifice — not just because they hadn’t had a pay rise, not just because trainees weren’t getting the London living wage and not just because the year-on-year cuts in their newsrooms meant punishing hours but also to highlight that understaffed and underresourced newspapers are dangerous for democracy.

As analysis by the Press Gazette showed, the capital is one of the least-covered regions in Britain by local newspapers in population terms.

This came as no surprise to the journalists taking action, who have seen jobs being cut and titles going to the wall. They knew they don’t have the staff to cover council meetings, planning committees, health authority board meetings and the courts.

They knew that with the contest for the next mayor of London hotting up, readers in the capital deserved better coverage than they could provide.

Because they made such a principled stand, they had an enormous response which put their management to shame. The union galvanised the London Assembly to write a letter, signed by all parties, and later table an emergency motion on behalf of the strikers.

They told Newsquest South London’s managing director Gary Kendall that the cuts were a “real threat to democratic awareness and will undermine these local communities and business sectors.

“We need local papers of a reasonable quality to ensure democratic scrutiny, accountability and encourage an informed and active citizenship.”

The strikers were supported by local politicians of every hue.

Conservative MP for Kingston and Surbiton James Berry was one of the many joining the picket line.

He tweeted: “With the @SurreyComet team in #Kingston protesting at the proposed redundancies. Big impact on local democracy.”

MPs signed an early day motion sponsored by Conservative MP for Twickenham Tania Mathias and messages of support flooded in from the TUC, the International Federation of Journalists and the News Guild-CWA in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Newsquest is one of Britain’s largest regional newspaper publishers with more than 200 newspapers, magazines and trade publications, and its most recent annual profits were £52.8 million — so it’s not an ailing company.

Gracia Martore, the CEO of Gannett, Newsquest’s US parent company, is paid a massive £7.5m a year.

Her total lack of awareness was demonstrated by a truly toe-curling corporate video produced by Martore and her henchmen involving them lip-synching to the Legoland movie theme tune Everything is Awesome. Trust me, it has to be seen to be believed (bit.ly/1MIQAlh).

Eventually the management agreed to get back to the negotiating table and a deal was agreed.

While that battle was won, the war continues. Before setting off for the summer holidays, Newsquest management unleashed another wave of journalist sackings on titles in Oxford, Wiltshire and Bournemouth.

Staff photographers were forced to become freelance and production jobs were outsourced to India.

Journalists working on the Herald, Evening Times and Sunday Herald have voted unanimously to ballot for industrial action, including strike action after Newsquest’s announcement that it is to cut editorial jobs by 20 per cent on the Herald & Times group. Up to 20 jobs could be affected. This is the third round of redundancies in the group in the past 10 months.

It has been a common pattern across Britain by all of the major newspaper groups. In June Trinity Mirror announced it was cutting 45 jobs in the Midlands and Scotland.

While politicians have the self-interest to understand the importance of their local paper, this has not been translated to a national level.

The Chancellor has proposed supporting local media through business rate relief. The NUJ believes this must come with guarantees.

The saving must be used to keep local offices open with enough staff to do the work producing quality content, not just end up in the pockets of shareholders.

The rate change alone is simply not enough. That is why we are asking the TUC at Congress to back our motion calling for a short, sharp inquiry into the future of local media and to back the NUJ’s Local News Matters campaign.

We have said the inquiry should be “focused not only on the immediate needs of the sector but also on promoting greater plurality and supporting local communities trying to protect titles from closure.”

We know people really care when they lose contact with their local reporters and photographers.

More than 100 people joined an NUJ rally in Caernarfon to protest against Trinity Mirror’s proposal to shut an office which had served the community there since 1855.

The union also has plans to meet members of the London Assembly in the autumn to instigate a capital-wide inquiry and we will be calling on the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament to launch their own.

Local newspapers and their websites are the most trusted form of the media, read by more than 30 million people each week.

People expect their local newspaper to be a watchdog, keeping tabs on the decisions made by local politicians, defending local services, reporting on the local football team and giving a voice to the community.

Greedy newspaper groups have not invested in journalism. When the going was good they creamed off the profits and didn’t look to the future.

Today, as digital media is transforming the way we receive our news and information, the proprietors see it as an opportunity to do things on the cheap and simply don’t care about quality journalism. Is it any wonder that circulations are falling?

The Newsquest strike was a sign that NUJ members are prepared to fight for their local papers, but they need support. That’s why we should all be backing our Local News Matters campaign. Go to www.nuj.org.uk/campaigns/local-news-matters/ and see how you can get involved.

• Michelle Stanistreet is general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.