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How might a hyperlocal newsroom work?

21st July 2011 by nickygetgood

Today is the last day of Cardiff’s Great Big Empty Shop Experiment, ‘created by the Centre for Policy & Enterprise in Creative Industries [University of Glamorgan] to investigate how the increasing number of empty shops in our City Centres could be put to better use by start-up creative enterprises.’

I went to visit the shop in Cardiff city centre just before it opened to see what was what, which resulted in the very rough and ready slideshow above.  The temporary ‘interactive exhibition space’ hosted a range of displays, events and activities such as a mini literature festival and a corner of the old Index catalogue shop was a designated ‘community newsroom’ area. This was one of the preferred options of Gill Allard’s  ‘quick and dirty’ online survey (below) to try and ascertain what people might like to see fill the increasing number of empty shops on our high streets.

This got the talk about local team thinking about the idea of a physical hyperlocal newsroom independent publishers could operate from. What would it do? How would it work? What were the obvious benefits of having a physical space and local presence as well as an online one?

Big Empty Shop dirty survey
Gill Allard's 'quick and dirty online survey'

Mike was very enthusiastic about the idea of an open, welcoming coffee-shop style space in a central, visible location where local people could drop by, share their news and find out what was new in the area. I thought it could also make a good space for scheduled and impromptu social media surgeries, to roll out independent publishers’ skills wider into the community. Obviously, the physical presence and space for face-to-face conversation would help build and strengthen the publishers’ local relationships and networks.

William pointed out a physical space is particularly necessary where the content itself is physical and can’t be emailed or linked to, remembering a long queue of parents with babies in a shopping centre looking to have their little darlings professionally photographed to enter them into a beautiful baby competition. A newsroom could also work well for heritage and history projects around physical materials – having a scanner for old photographs and cuttings, some simple recording equipment and lots of time and space to capture the stories of those submitting them means the space could be at the heart of building a rich community archive.

William also felt a community newsroom could be part of a professional newsroom, such as a spare office or few desks in a local newspaper office.  This could be one step forward from the Birmingham Mail Your Communities arrangement, where both the newspaper and hyperlocal publishers benefit – the newspaper gets wind of the local stories from those on the ground and the publishers get credit where it’s due, access to some of the paper’s archives and resources and an increased profile.  A presence within a more prominent local newspaper’s premises might help a hyperlocal publisher forge new relationships locally and gain new skills from those they are working alongside (and vice versa!).

However Mike and Sarah felt there may be quite a way to go before this could be achieved, saying the newspaper might be inclined to try and impose their processes and protocols on the hyperlocal’s practice and the culture of competition over stories rather than sharing of them may still be too strong for a collaborative working environment between the two camps.

And that’s as far as we got, at which point we thought it might be a good idea to open up the discussion and ask hyperlocal publishers: What do you think? What would you do with a physical space if you had one to use? How might it help? How might it hinder? Please let us know in the comments area.

Of course the obvious answer to the last question is ‘overheads’ but there are an increasing amount of low-cost ways voluntary community groups can use empty shops and buildings, which are becoming a depressingly common site in the current economic climate. A couple of great resources are:

  • 3space, who gave the University of Glamorgan use of the Cardiff shop. ‘3Space have a unique offering: offering organisations that benefit the community access to empty properties on a non commercial basis (free of charge in most cases).’
  • The Place Station, which ‘introduces owners of land and buildings across the UK to social and community entrepreneurs with ideas for transforming their local area.’
  • As reported in Third Force News ‘John Lewis Glasgow is trialling a new community initiative that will provide a dedicated community room for use by charities and community organisations.’ Fingers crossed that if this trial works well, it might be rolled out to other John Lewis UK stores.
  • The Meanwhile Project, which ‘is based on the belief that empty properties spoil town centres…As a programme of work, the Meanwhile Project has been providing practical and financial support for a wide range of meanwhile approaches in towns throughout the country, as well as technical advice, manuals and common tools to help anyone who wants to do something positive in the meanwhile.’ Join the Meanwhile Ning Forum to join in the discussion and receive regular updates.
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nickygetgood

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: 3space, Birmingham Mail, cardiff, Gill Allard, Great Big Empty Shop Experiment, John Lewis, The Place Station, Third Force News, University of Glamorgan, Your Communities

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jess Steele says

    21st July 2011 at 7:23 pm

    I think this is a great idea, though the space needs to be very town centre and vibrant which few newspapers have.
    Another great resource in this field is Meanwhile Space – see http://www.meanwhile.org.uk which includes a link through to the Meanwhile Ning (over 1,000 members).

  2. Nicky Getgood says

    22nd July 2011 at 9:05 am

    Thanks Jess. Agree with you that such a space would need to be central and visible – to be where the people are with an inviting air that gets them through the door!

    As you say, few newspapers have this location and type of space. The Birmingham Post & Mail for instance, have recently moved from the city centre to Fort Dunlop on the outskirts, so although it might be perfect for a hyperlocal publisher in that local area, it wouldn’t be great for a Birmingham city community newsroom.

    Many thanks for the link to the Meanwhile Project, it looks fantastic! I’ve put a link to the website and Ning forum in the list above. 🙂

    Nicky

  3. Michael Rawlins says

    22nd July 2011 at 9:25 am

    I *love* this idea, I would really like to get something running in Stoke-on-Trent. My ideal would be:

    A co-working space
    A SMS drop-in centre
    A news hub for hyperlocals & mainstream to collaborate.

    The top two I can see no problems with the last one however has a few more ‘issues’.

    In Stoke we have had an up and down relationship with the ‘mainstream’ media over the years and now we rub along without too many issues.

    Now in a hypothetical situation, someone comes in to the news hub with a scoop, who gets it? The person who they speak to, everyone, the fastest out of the door or more importantly the ones with the credentials?

    What I am trying to say is from the POV of a hyperlocal no matter how good your relationship is with mainstream media they will undoubtebly trample over you to get to the story first and can get closer because they have credentials.

    An example, you get a call telling you that a high ranking government minister is on a low profile visit, it’s all very secret they just want to visit without press, but you are told if you happen to be at a certain place you will get a picture and maybe a quick sound bite.

    Your ‘partners’ in the news hub hear this and mobilise the media machine, people around the minister close ranks and your opportunity is lost. The mainstream get the story thanks to your contact and you miss out on what could have been the biggest story of the year on your site.

    But I still love the idea…

  4. Dave Harte says

    22nd July 2011 at 9:44 am

    Interesting stuff. I don’t think a community newsroom could ever be part of a professional newsroom though. For a start I’d feel genuinely intimidated being in such an environment – those guys operate in a different way and are motivated by different things. Being a ‘community media practitioner’ (how I’d describe the hyperlocal role) is not being a journalist. It’s better than that.

  5. Karen Strunks says

    22nd July 2011 at 10:12 am

    A great idea. Location would be key, in the hub of a hyperlocal community so it can be easily accessed by people who want to drop in. Benefit of it is that it could act as another medium for people to get involved and might remove any imagined barriers to taking part in the local news and issues in the area.

    Plus, there’s the empowering of the local community too. ie. Someone pops into the centre, reports an issue and it could be written about there and then. In turn it could also act as an invitation for residents to get involved themselves and open up new avenues for them.

  6. Stuart Parker says

    22nd July 2011 at 10:42 am

    You only need to see what John Coster has achieved in Leicester with Citizenseye. A truly ‘bottom up’ approach which not only has a tremendous amount of ‘citizen journalist’ stuff going on, but also working links with the local Leicester Mercury.

Trackbacks

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    6th October 2011 at 4:46 pm

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