Going greener: Scottish newsrooms team up for sustainability reporting project

A network of Scottish independent and hyperlocal newsrooms are stepping up their coverage of sustainable change.

The Scottish Beacon launched last year to encourage small news organisations to team up and share in each other's resources, inspired by similar efforts in the US.

It has since run a Citizens Agenda - a model for election coverage popularised in the US and catching on in the UK - in the run-up to the 2024 UK general election. This gauged what issues Scottish people wanted candidates standing for election to debate, and the top two issues that emerged were climate change and green energy.

Now, in 100 Days of the Green Transition, 14 Scottish independent publications will be sharing and amplifying more than 50 stories of how local people in Scotland's communities are going greener.

This is in partnership with the Local Storytelling Exchange, an organisation made up mostly of former journalists that formed after seeing a need for more stories of relatable, people-led moves towards a greener society, particularly in local media. It is also providing action-based reporting training as part of the partnership.

"The Scottish Beacon is trying to create opportunities that build capacity," Rhiannon J Davies, founder of the Scottish Beacon project and participating community magazine Greater Govanhill, in an email to Journalism.co.uk.

This has included funded projects like the Citizens Agenda programme which shared grant revenue with participating partners. But also peer-to-peer learning on FOIs, newsletters, and community engagement.

"The sort of articles that people are submitting to this project are stories that community-based publications might be likely to run anyway. The stories tend to be people-led, and about issues that matter to their readers. So it's not creating additional work for partners," Davies continues.

"Instead what we're doing is trying to amplify those stories by connecting them up and using the power of our network to create a story that's bigger than the sum of its parts. 

"We hear from our partners that actions tackling climate change can be a divisive in communities, and so by highlighting stories of positive change across the country it shows our readers that there are ways forward, and that often those solutions are being created by people just like them."

Over three months, from September to November, Beacon member publications from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway will be seeking out stories that reflect positive action on the ground.

14 publications are aiming to participate in the project include: Greater Govanhill, Broughton Spurtle, Glenkens Gazette, Forres Online, Shetland News, Fios, Bylines Scotland, Kyle Chronicle, Crail Matters,The Clydesider, C&B News, Lochside Press, The Bellman, Midlothian View.

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