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Hyperlocal in the UK

Six questions for #hyperlocal media policy from Carnegie UK Trust

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neighbourhood news graphicWe been working with five great but very different community news projects for Carnegie UK Trust – in Brixton London, Alston in Cumbria, Harlow in Essex, Port Talbot in Wales and Wester Hailes in Edinburgh.  Carnegie is exploring how to bolster accountability and democracy in communities, in which news and information plays a vital part.  Talk About Local is helping Carnegie evaluate and support the Neighbourhood News projects – there is an interim report from Talk About Local and from Carnegie.  Each project receives relatively small sums – two payments of £5,000 – for creating new or expanding existing local news and information output.  The emphasis is very much on community news, information and accountability, rather than technology or business process innovation.  Even at this interim stage Carnegie have isolated some pertinent questions for UK local media policy:

1. Why do we see so little support for  local news projects by grant making  foundations, charities and grant  makers, who are interested in the  wellbeing of communities and  individuals? What role could such  organisations play?

 2. Would the approach adopted in  Neighbourhood News – of spreading  risk by supporting a small number of  well-organised community media  projects with small pots of funding  and using an independent expert  advisory group to help select winners  – be attractive to other funders?

 3. Could government interventions in  the local news market, such as the  Community Radio Fund, be adapted  or expanded to provide opportunities  for local news providers who operate  on other platforms, including  web-based providers?

 4. In the debate on regulating  media plurality, which is largely  about managing market exit of  independent outlets, is there a role  for encouraging market entry by  many small web-based providers?

5. What scope is there for amending  the regulations relating to the  advertising of statutory notices to  ensure that the outlets awarded such  contracts meet clear requirements  in relation to population reach and  provision of at least some ‘public  interest’ content, irrespective of  the platform used?

 6. What is the best strategy for  supporting start-up local news  projects? Can traditional community  development structures play a role  or is a new infrastructure required?  How can local news projects be  supported to learn from each other?

It would be great to hear from UK hyperlocal practitioners and anyone else in the comments. Just a quick blog for now, but I shall be talking more about this at the Media Power and Plurality event at City on Friday 2 May.

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William Perrin

Founder of Talk About Local, Trustee of the Indigo Trust, Tinder Foundation, 360Giving, co-founder Connect8, former member of UK Government transparency panels, former Policy Advisor to UK Prime Minister, former Cabinet Office senior civil servant.Open data do-er, Kings Cross London blogger. Loves countryside. Two small children.
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  2. […] Full details of the Media Power and Plurality conference at City University London on 2 May, jointly hosted by University of Westminster’s Media Power and Plurality AHRC project and the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City, can be found here.  William Perrin will take part in a panel asking ‘Local media plurality: is it all doom and gloom?’. This post originally appeared on the TalkAboutLocal blog. […]