Want to save local news? Get the locals involved

Arlington Row in Bibury, Gloucestershire

Credit: Anguskirk on Flickr

The Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) and NewsNow, the UK's independent news discovery platform, have teamed up for a new project that aims to revive local news.

The project, Local News Plans, will host workshops in six UK locations: Bangor, Newry, Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol and Folkestone before the end of the year.

It will invite a range of people from local community groups, those from the public, private and third sectors, and local investors. On the agenda are three main questions: What do you think of local news in your area? What would you like to see from the news in your local area? And what could you give back to local news in your area?

"We can sit in our offices and try to guess what people think of local news," says Jonathan Heawood, executive director of PINF. "Or we can go out and ask them."

There has been no shortage of attempts to boost the UK's local news sector in the past few years. Initiatives like the Facebook Community News Project or the BBC Local News Partnership, for example, are trying to solve the problem by training and funding extra reporters.

What these blanket initiatives do not address, however, is that different people have a very different experience with local news. If we are to create a sustainable local journalism sector, we need to work out what the audience on the ground wants and needs, then tailor local journalism to their unique requirements.

Read more: Why publishers must shift their focus from business to audience needs

Once the workshops are done, PINF and NewsNow want to take the findings to the actors who could fund local newsrooms: philanthropists, platforms, and public and private funders.

They will also draft a bigger report aimed at policymakers at the national level. This has an air of deja vu though, as everyone who dared to hope that the Cairncross Review into a sustainable future for journalism will make a change is still waiting to see any major breakthroughs.

"Cairncross had some really good ideas but most of those things didn’t happen," says Heawood, referencing the proposed creation of a national innovation funding body as a key example.

Read more: UK government will not fund public interest journalism, enlisting an IMPRESS-backed non-profit instead

"Why hasn’t it happened? Maybe because national policymakers don't see it as a priority. But also maybe because the people on the local level haven’t been pulled in to have an input."

There is no doubt that some of the challenges are structural and the lack of funding is one of the major obstacles to boosting innovation in the local journalism sector.

While Cairncross proposed a number of solutions to this, such as pulling in some money from the tax system or the BBC licence money, Heawood thinks we need to think more creatively. An interesting idea currently explored by the UK government is tapping into the £880 million Dormant Asset Fund that must be spent on social inclusion, among other causes.

But having a pot of money available will only be a start. The really tough decisions will need to be made around how it is administered. Ideally, public funding would match private and charitable funding, which is still miles behind the US and other countries. That said, having some public money available to kickstart grassroots local news initiatives could be a game-changer.

Whatever the funding strategy, local newsrooms need to make an effort to improve their reputation, both with the communities they are meant to be serving and with potential funders. With recession looming, they cannot afford to ignore any reasonable source of revenue that could help them stay afloat.

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