Good afternoon,
There’s only one place to start for this week’s digest and that’s the long mooted Local Media Strategy here in the UK which has been announced by the government.
Plenty of warm words have been said about local media, in particular since the riots of summer 2024, and now we have seen the Secretary of State, Lisa Nandy, outline the direction of travel they see for local journalism in all its forms.
That’s one of the big takeaways for me from this, it isn’t just about newspapers, or websites, or radio, or TV, it’s about local media in a broad sense. So that’s encouraging to see. And for those in the independent local news sector, such as Blog Preston, it is heartening to see such a significant policy announcement from the government which clearly has taken into account those who have started something from nothing - alongside legacy titles. Both, clearly, have their place. And I think it is credit to DCMS, and therefore Nandy, who broadly they have tried to canvas views while creating this strategy.
My key takeaways from the announcement, having now digested the full strategy document...
Innovation fund, by another name. The Local News Fund is in essence a challenge to the industry to do things differently - this is now bailout package. How do you scale up? How do you advance? I think this is encouraging and there’s specific mention of encouraging more collaboration between local media - of differing styles and set ups. This can only be a good thing, too often there’s more focus on handbags between media groups while the behemoths of Google, Facebook, TikTok and others continue to devour market share and attention.
Advertising is clearly still important (to local media and to the government). In my role as an advisory board member at the Independent Community News Network (ICNN) I put my hand up last summer to take on a challenge, essentially, from DCMS and Omnigov about whether some kind of collaborative network approach to advertising across hyperlocal titles was possible. What we’ve come up with is now baked into the strategy as a commitment to pilot it. The hard work now starts on actually delivering something meaningful, but I am confident through the collaborative will of those in government we have been working with and the editors and titles involved so far that we will find a way through what always appear to be numerous technological stumbling blocks.
The exact wording below…
working with the government’s media buying agency and the Independent Community News Network (the primary trade body for independent community and hyperlocal news publishers in the UK) to pilot the use of hyperlocal local news titles in government advertising campaigns where appropriate for the audience and campaign objectives. This work will test the value of the collective reach of these titles and links with the communities that they cover.
This is the moment to step up. From media literacy pilots, to West of England collaborative bodies around access to information and reporting, to expanding into places without an independent or established title, I take this strategy as placing the ball firmly in the industry’s court. And that means taking a deep breath and really committing to whatever model and future there is for your local media title and business model. It is not for Lisa Nandy to save local journalism, it is for us - as editors, as journalists, as entrepreneurs, to find a way.
Anyone who was hoping the strategy would have a straightforward handout was living in dreamland. The government’s biggest single thing to help local media would come through securing a mechanism for the tech giant to recompense media, in general, for their content creation and usage of journalism. That would put any £12m Local News Fund in the shade very swiftly and be transformative for everyone, regardless of size and scale.
I’ve seen a few pieces, most notable from my former Reach colleague Paul Rowland and director of News across its network, saying this Local Media Strategy is just the start and urging collaboration. He’s spot on.
Everyone wants to save local journalism, everyone agrees it is vital for democracy and society. Now is the time for muddy boots and shirts on the field, as opposed to words from the touchline. Because the audience, readers, viewers, subscribers, whatever you want to call them - are there to be served.
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As I guess an example of the importance of local journalism, especially for independent titles, I’ll write more on this further down the line but last week on Blog Preston we launched a petition calling on Lisa Nandy (we’re not stalking her, honest!) to intervene in the Preston Guild Hall saga and help Preston have a major venue again. It came in the wake of the council announcing it would spend another 12 months assessing options. The venue has been closed since 2019.
It’s been heartening to see readers get firmly behind the campaign and relish having somewhere to put their frustrations into positively. We’re approaching 2,500 signatures in less than a week and we’ve seen organisations, groups and individuals across the city coming out to support and back the campaign - and send their own messages directly to the Culture Secretary too.
So if Lisa could just save local journalism and give Preston a major venue...
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That’s all for this week’s digest, hope it’s proved useful and as always if you have something you’d like to share drop me a line at ed@almaonline.co.uk
Have a great rest of the week.
Keep going.
Ed
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