Medway's indie title, Local Authority, had packed out rooms for candidates to respond to voter questions ahead of the UK general election
Chatham and Aylesford hustings on 19 June 2024
Newsletters can encourage people to turn up and participate in local political events, according to an independent local news title.
Local Authority is a Substack newsletter launched in 2021 by Ed Jennings and Steven Keevil, which has since amassed 2.5k free and 400 paid subscribers. It covers the Medway towns, a collection of boroughs in Kent. They do this in their spare time outside day jobs in social media management and a community centre.
Ahead of the UK general election next month, it saw 550 of its readers turn up across three hustings - public meetings with election candidates answering pre-submitted questions - in its local constituencies of Gillingham and Rainham (13 June), Rochester and Strood (18 June) and Chatham and Aylesford (19 June).
"I have an image in my head of hustings as 20 people in a musty church," says editor Jennings. He and his co-founder know this well, having both worked more than a decade ago as political activists for the Liberal Democrats and Green Party respectively.
Jennings puts the big turnout down to the direct relationship formed with his readers, who may not be huge in number, but are highly engaged, older and wealthier than a typical news reader.
Local Authority / Ed Jennings
He is also directly inspired by Mill Media, the news group with Substack-powered titles in major UK cities which just expanded to Glasgow and London. He wants to scale down their model and has even visited The Mill offices for advice from the CEO Joshi Herrmann.
"They are the inspiration, while being fully aware that Medway is not Manchester," says Jennings.
Local Authority - a play on words, being a 'local authority' on the local authority - is a name that has caused some confusion with the Medway Council itself.
"I didn't envision this becoming a business," jokes Jennings. He had run a local news blog for around five years but burnout and diminishing returns ultimately got the better of him. Despite that, he still harboured the ambition to provide an alternative source of news in the local area.
The KM Media Group dominates the Medway area, owning the Kent Messenger newspaper, Kent Online website, KMFM radio station and KMTV station. The only other option is Future Medway, an independent title focused on development and regeneration.
His grand ambition is to leave his day job to work on Local Authority full time. To do that, he estimates he would need to hit 1k paying subscribers at £6 a month or £60 a year.
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