The Whistlecombe Magna Parish Pump, the monthly magazine of a village of some four hundred residents, will no longer report village events, its editor announced this week. Each issue will instead carry a long-form analysis of which articles in previous issues provoked the most disagreement among readers.

"Nobody wrote in about the fête. Nobody wrote in about the flooded ford," said the editor, Mrs Doreen Tatley, at a launch event in the village hall attended by the magazine's entire editorial board, which is also Mrs Tatley. "Then we ran a piece saying the magazine had become a noticeboard for the wrong sort of notice, and we received more correspondence than in any month since we began."

That correspondence forms the bulk of the new issue. The letters page, formerly reserved for complaints about parking near the post office, now prints letters exclusively about the letters page. A letter from Mr Alan Priddle, of The Green, notes that the letters page has become the most read section of the magazine, and asks why the editors allow it to crowd out coverage of the parking situation near the post office. A reply from the letters editor, Mrs Tatley, explains that engagement is now the magazine's stated editorial priority.

The new format

The centrefold of the relaunched title is a two-page essay titled "Why Everyone Is Angry About The Essay", which examines the response to the previous issue's essay, "Why The Fête Is No Longer Worth Covering".

"It weighs the letter writers who were angry at the analysis against the letter writers who were angry at the letter writers," Mrs Tatley said. "There is a third group who are angry that we print letters at all. We have given them a column."

Coverage of the flooded ford, the subject of the magazine's most-cited article of two years ago, has been discontinued. Residents seeking news of the ford are advised to consult the letters page, where it now comes up chiefly among correspondents arguing about whether it belongs on the letters page.

Response from the village

The parish council has passed a motion asking the magazine to resume reporting. The motion has been printed in full on the letters page, beneath three letters about the motion, one of which is from the council, complaining that the other two were given more space.

Mrs Tatley said the magazine's new direction was settled. "People ask what we will analyse when the arguments run out," she said. "The arguments about that question have been excellent. Full issue next month."