By Jess Jones The BBC could cause serious harm to local news publishers who cannot compete with the national broadcaster, the chief of trade body News Media Association (NMA) has warned. “By needlessly boosting its digital local news offering, at the expense of much-loved local radio services, the BBC threatens to crush commercial local news publishers who cannot be expected to compete with the might of the licence fee,” said Owen Meredith. “Ultimately, this could result in the BBC becoming the only source of local news in many communities,” he added, calling on MPs and Ofcom to “wake up to th…