Potholes and dog poo: is this the future of journalism?

Photo courtesy of Matt Callow

"I don't care about local news."

The bold statement 'The Chancer', one of the journalist graduates from The Wannabe Hacks blog, made in a post about local journalism failing to engage young people attracted a string of of angry comments from several journalists, who called his argument "parochial", "naive", "ridiculous and lazy".

Knowing the power of the Internet in helping employers hire and fire, I was astounded that a young graduate, who "wanna be a hack", should have exposed such eyebrow-raising views in a public forum. His views, however, are far from being unique.

I live in a small, low-average-income town, where, I am certain, young people also think the local paper is only good for wrapping fish and chips. Apart from a few pubs and gambling places, our high street does not offer particularly attractive young leisure options. Not surprisingly, vandalism is a common local occurrence.

A large Christmas tree put up in the high street at the end of last year was tied to a security camera pole to prevent theft. Despite the effort, within 24 hours, its decorations had been stolen and destroyed. No one was even shocked but it filled me with rage and contempt. What had happened to community spirit? Where was the feeling of belonging and wanting to make things better?

Not all young people are apathetic of course. And not reading the local paper doesn't make you into a vandal either. The Chancer, as far as I know, is a law-abiding citizen, but his lack of interest in the local goings-on reflect that of a vast number of young people across the country. They do not feel a tie to their local area. They do not yet have social responsibilities that can be affected by local politics, local tax, local rubbish collection.

We can berate the wannabe hack for his flawed argument but not for his brutal honesty.

Local news readers
The editor-in-chief of my local newspaper recently extolled the importance of the paper in a double-page spread commemorating Local Newspaper Week (9 - 15 May).

He said the local voices that get heard through the paper represent "the bedrock of any democracy". The Prime Minister's also sent in a message reminding readers local papers help "hold the powerful to account", and former Guardian editor Peter Preston, concludes his column with: "Prize it, relish it, support it, because [..] it helps your world go round."

Democracy? Accountability? World spinner? When I stare at one of our local papers' front page story, and see a Yorkshire Terrier being hailed 'a hero'...for having barked – thus alerting his sleeping owner to a fire, the temptation is great to sneer at these idealistic concepts. 

Right, let's face it. The general pattern tends to be: a couple of larger stories from neighbouring towns, a smattering of nibs about local events and meetings; rehashed press release material, an OAP's 90th birthday, someone running for charity. All in all, fairly sleepy, polite news. An occasional death or crime thrown in for good measure.

Yet, if you look at the Letters page, you will see many locals and local politicians, have read it and written in with their say about an environmental issue, rubbish and bins, about cycle paths, or the lack of them, about dangerous potholes and annoying dog poo fouling the streets.

Whether the young are listening or not, this is their town, their community, their home – they do care. And as long as someone cares, journalists have a duty to fulfil.

Yes, there is room for improvement. Some decent subbing would not go amiss for starters – spelling and grammar in our local paper are often embarrassingly atrocious – and reporters could do with replacing lame press release rewriting with more footwork. But at the end of the day, no matter how good the writing is, papers still need advertising income, still need to sell copies. The question is how.

Dog shit and the future of news
I had hoped some kind of magic formula combining digital + (hyper)local + monetisation could be the answer. But when even the excellent Guardian Local initiative announced its closure for being 'unsustainable', my heart sank. What next then?

Talking at the Brighton Future of News earlier this week, Guardian data journalist James Ball pointed out that a street-by-street mapping of local crime is something no newspaper seems to be recording, but, if one was available, it could generate massive reader interest.

A light bulb went on over my head.

Could using data creatively be one of the solutions? Data visualisation is innovative, exciting and appealing to the eye. It is a fun way to tell a story with pretty pictures – much like a graphic novel – although it is still up to the journalist to find the story in the data.

Most importantly, it could engage younger readers, like The Chancer, who might just take a bit more interest in the local news. Of course this would still imply a migration from print to digital, but more eyeballs on local news can't be a bad thing.

At the BBC Social Media Summit (hashtag #bbcsms on Twitter) this week, Will Perrin founder of Talk About Local mentioned a North London local site, which, despite being run at only £8/month, attracts the equivalent proportionate audience as BBC's Newsnight – even though, in his words, it is fundamentally about "crime, potholes and dog shit". [Watch the video on the BBC College of Journalism site (26min in)]

Will Perrin's words convince me even more that journalists discussing the future of local news should be more concerned about format, presentation and delivery, a little less about local content, which although spurned by the young and the apathetic, still seems pertinent.

In my amused perverted mind, I am imagining a Google Map of dog fouling with pet owners' names against turd-shaped placemarks to name and shame offenders. It wouldn't work in real life, but it would certainly grab readers' attention and provoke mirth.

BBC's Dave Lee's tweet below says it all. We could spend a lifetime debating the future of news and local journalism, but the answer, I suspect, is already right here, at our feet. Quite literally.

Hyperlocal vs local: how about a truce?

An article I wrote appeared in one of the local papers this week. And for the first time I didn't cheer.

Instead of the usual elation in getting a byline, the sight of my story in print brought on the type of anticlimax you get when you have fought a battle for so long and so hard, victory feels anything but sweet.

This is the story of that battle.

The priority queue
My article was about ineffective CCTV footage failing to help identify yobs, who had vandalised a local shop window in a town with anti-social behaviour on the rise.

The paper's news editor was excited about it and wanted to publish it straight away, but, typically, the story didn't appear for another week. Perhaps they needed time to flesh it out with less local and more regional facts and figures. But it is generally the case that hyperlocal stories, unless they involve death, sex and/or gore, are seldom rushed into a paper that covers a wide geographical area.

When there are only so many pages for news, small town news can easily end up at the end of a lower-priority queue.

With only two newspapers covering the area I live in – one from the Newsquest group, another from Johnston Press – I usually submit local news pieces to both to maxmise chances of publication.

Reputation
I have been a resident in this town for less than two years, but since I started contributing to the local press, I am constantly surprised at how many townsfolk know me as a journalist. I am of course always "fishing" for stories. I attend the local Chamber of Commerce meetings, council meetings and local cultural events whenever possible; I pay attention to locals' gossip, as sometimes there can be a good story behind them. Local traders – bless them – are always eager to give me tip-offs about upcoming events they are involved in, hoping I will do them a write-up and provide them with some free PR, which I am happy to oblige with if I can.

I was chuffed when, the other evening, the town's mayor came to say hello at a public meeting, and a senior staff member of the district council recognised me and offered me a seat right next to Norman Baker MP.

With my community reputation on the up, I am well placed to become a hyperlocal reporter. The role, however, comes with a price tag, and it is not a pretty one.

It's charity work
By 'price' I refer to a type of penalty and not, sadly, the payment of a fee for work done. Local papers do not have budgets for freelancers full stop, especially not in mid-recession.

Frustrating as it can be, I can even overlook the lack of payment by the papers that publish my work, if I think of my reporting as community service. It would certainly make a world of difference if newspapers could cough up even a nominal tenner per article, just as an acknowledgment of hard work. It is not the absence of money that hurts the most, but the utter absence of appreciation. (Low-waged junior reporters must feel exactly the same). As it stands, there is no clear line marking where the keen work experience student finishes and the keen professional journalist starts.

Does my pothole look big (enough) in this?
The next big battle is getting my hyperlocal news pieces accepted, and published, by local papers.

There is a priority issue, as I have already mentioned. Is the pothole in my street as newsworthy as one in a larger city like Brighton, for instance?

Other times, the story is taken up, but with an "of course we are happy to help build your portfolio..." type of comment, to drive home the fact that they are publishing my piece as a favour, NOT because I picked up on a good story they had missed.

No love lost
Last week I also realised a local reporter assigned to cover this area regards me as a thorn in her side.

This is a senior journalist who, when I once mentioned I expected to see her at a certain public event but she wasn't there (and therefore I had written a report about it), tartly retorted, "But I didn't receive an email about it." Heck. I hadn't received an email either. A local trader had told me about it. Aren't reporters supposed to sniff out off-diary stories within their beat? Or do they sit around waiting for press releases to arrive in their inboxes?

I have only myself to blame for being so naïve. What was I thinking believing a local hack would accept my contributions with open arms, grateful that I was filling in gaps for her. There is obviously no interest in cultivating a working relationship with a freelance/unemployed journalist, who continuously exposes their own gaps and, even without pay, is enthusiastic about pursuing community news.

An inconvenient woman
At a local police meeting we both recently attended, she behaved as if I didn't exist. She was aware I would be there, as we had chatted about it on email an hour before; I was sitting less than two metres away, and right in her line of vision. She had met me before and knew what I looked like. I can only conclude it was intentional.

Even so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and told myself she had other people to talk to, that she was probably in a hurry to go home. But a stiff one-line email from her the following day, informing me my she had placed my "other (much shorter) article" on page x in the upcoming edition, with no mention of the meeting, confirmed my suspicions.

Had the message arrived before the snub, I would have read kindness into her words. But all I could hear now was: "this story is mine, stay off my beat."

The lesson is clear – there is no room for a hyperlocal journalist in a town with an established local paper. Collaboration is not on the cards. I am a threat, an inconvenience.

The last straw
Since then I have been so depressed, I cannot motivate myself to do anything journalism-related. The notes and recordings from the meeting are sitting forlornly at a corner of my desk, my desire to write another story out of them now lost. I have shelved my plans to send an FOI request to the police. My long list of ideas for future features are still in my notebook but haven't been actioned. Right now I can't see the point in investing any more time in any of it. I might as well spend my days and nights writing job applications and stuffing my face with junk food in frustration and boredom.

Long-term unemployment drains you of energy and makes you rapidly lose confidence and self-esteem. It affects you mentally, emotionally, physically. To counter those ill effects, I have been trying my best to keep intellectually and socially active by attending conferences and networking, learning new skills, listening to advice from other journalists, experimenting with digital technology, sharpening my skills all the time...

I have been attempting to be a journalist, even without a job. And what have I received in return? Contempt. Closed doors. "You are not one of ours." Snide comments. Silence.

I am too exhausted to fight any further.

Find your niche
According to a friend, who is a magazine editor, I am wasting my energy writing poxy little articles for poxy local newspapers, which are doing nothing to enhance my employment prospects. He says I need to find my niche market, and he is so right:

"Ultimately, landing a few very small paid assignments for an outlet that has a legitimate audience will do more for your career than grinding away at a hundred labor-intensive articles for a small local paper."

Symbiosis
Here is what I believe. Local and hyperlocal can co-exist quite happily in a symbiotic relationship. While news under hyperlocal may be small, the thinking behind it must be big in order to work. Hyperlocal initiatives offer plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurial journalists, who are resourceful, enthusiastic and community-oriented. I aspire to be one of those.

I have not given up on journalism, but I am taking some time out to re-set my priorities. I've had enough of small-town/small-mind journalism, which concerns itself mainly with defending personal reputations and territories. At the end of the day, who is the media serving? Advertisers? Media bosses? Individual journalists?

Isn't it time we put small communities on the map?

Potholes need to be covered. Or someone will fall into them.

Hyperlocal 2010: a roundup of predictions

New Year is here. Media pundits have been busily trying to forecast the future of print news and paywalls as journalism struggles to survive the worst recession of all times.

I have been reading up all year on one of my favourite topics – hyperlocal initiatives – and would love to know where that is heading towards.

The need for community-level reporting platforms seem to become increasingly evident with every new local newspaper that shuts down. But do they have any commercial viability in the long run? And is there a workable model of mutual collaboration with mainstream media?

Here is a roundup of what journalists and bloggers have been foreseeing with their crystal balls for 2010 and beyond.

The cash factor
Jo Wadsworth (@BrightonArgusJo), web editor of the Brighton Argus, well-known for her work with community reporters, predicted in a Q&A on Jon Slattery's blog that in 2010 hyperlocals will start making money.

Patrick Smith (@psmith), on reporting about the AOP's Microlocal Media Forum in paidContent:UK, came to a less sanguine conclusion...

"Whether anyone will be making a real living from [hyperlocal] – as a mainstream publisher or a start-up – seems unlikely in the near future..."

And yet, Philip John (@philpjohn), the technical geek behind the Lichfield Blog, believes it is possible for hyperlocal sites to make money and even blogged a list of suggestions.

Birmingham City University lecturer and Help Me Investigate founder Paul Bradshaw (@paulbradshaw) thinks new models require new (financial) strategies. He was reported by paidContent:UK as having said:

Are we expecting margins online that are coloured by our print experience? Why are we expecting to make as much money?”

The problem is that many consider 'hyperlocal' synonymous with amateur enterprise and hyperlocal blogging as "comment" as opposed to a journalist's "news". Matt Wardman (@mattwardman), who is compliling a directory of ultralocal blogs, says on his website:

"This is a ludicrous position to take, bearing in mind the extent to which news and opinion are mixed in the local (and especially the national) media, and also the miraculous range of howlers and planted stories which appear regularly."

Any hyperblogger approaching the managing director of Newsquest's digitial division, Roger Green, about possible partnering in the near future, can expect to be met with total scepticism. As the Press Gazette reported, Green didn't mince words in making his views known at the AOP Forum:

"You should sit in on some of the joke meetings I’ve been in with people from no-name start-ups who say we should help them start their business and pay them for the privilege."

The journalist-over-citizen bias
On the positive side, however, Walsall Council's Dan Slee (@danslee), has started calling for other local government press offices to treat local bloggers with the same respect as they would journalists from traditional media and vice-versa.

Slee deserves much credit for the initiative because, as Sarah Hartley (@foodiesarah) wrote in The Guardian about the TalkAboutLocal's first 'unconference' in Stoke-on-Trent, the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) "looks unlikely to change the definition of who gets treated as a journalist". The Guardian quotes an NALC spokeswoman:

"We can say anecdotally that we would encourage councils to treat only accredited journalists as journalists. And treat citizen journalists as citizens."

One more reason why a change of attitude to accept local bloggers filling in market gaps "needs to come from the top", as Philip John commented on Sarah's personal blog.

The synergetic view
I have a huge respect for the opinions of multimedia journalist Adam Westbrook (@AdamWestbrook). He is the type of progressive-thinking mentor the next generation of young journalists can only benefit from.

On the News: Rewired site (he is one of the speakers at the event on 14th January), Westbrook identified three ways to be an entrepreneurial journalist, the first of which is to match needs of the market with what you can offer in the same way "James Dyson [...] realised people were tired of bags in vacuum cleaners".

"Hyperlocal websites which start up in areas well served by mainstream media will struggle, because they’ll be trying to offer an alternative to a market which is quite content."

In Westbrook's vision, mainstream giants co-exist symbiotically with hyperlocal businesses:

"The future of journalism landscape still has the BBC, the Guardian, the Telegraph, BSkyB and all the other big names in it – just with other, smaller, businesses around it. They will be complimented [sic] – not threatened – by start-ups."

Alas, the backlash
Of course not all share that view, particularly the change-averse, stick-in-the-mud old-schoolers.

Software developer Dave Winer (@davewiner), compared the rise of citizen journalists to the arrival of "amateur skiers" at professional ski slopes but says, seemingly with regret, that "the exclusivity is gone".

"The pros have to share the slopes with people who don't take the sport as seriously as they do."

As I wrote in my comment to his blog, should saving professional skiers by keeping the "amateurs" out take precedence over saving skiing as a sport by embracing the positive aspects "amateurs" can bring into it?

My personal hope is that, just like ethnic profiling for anti-terrorism scanning at airports is causing an outrage now, one day linking words starting with "citizen" and "hyperlocal" with incompetency will be taboo and a thing of the past.

And what does your crystal ball say about hyperlocal? Add your views below.

Hyperlocal is here to stay (Help Me Investigate)

As an enthusiast for investigative journalism and a believer in the power of crowdsourcing, I volunteered as an investigator on Paul Bradshaw's Help Me Investigate platform.

The topic I chose to investigate was "How much local council news coverage is there in your local newspaper?", led by The Guardian's local launch editor Sarah Hartley.

I picked one daily, The Argus, and one weekly, the Sussex Express, and analysed their coverage of local council news.

The instructions were to:
a) count the total number of news pages (excluding ad pages, sports, property section, etc)
b) count the space occupied by local council stories (1/4, 1/2 or 1 page)
c) divide b by c to arrive at a percentage

Outcomes
The two papers returned very similar results. In four weeks, Sussex Express produced an average of 4.15% of council news in its news pages and The Argus, an average of 4.46% over five days.

If you are interested in helping the investigation, go to the Help Me Investigate site, read the guidelines and let Sarah (sarah.hartley AT guardian.co.uk or @foodiesarah on Twitter) know which papers you are covering from this list.

The outcomes were in line with my expectations. Since regional papers started shedding staff as ad revenues fell, the resulting understaffing in local papers' newsrooms meant the remaining reporters had to stretch themselves to tackle the increased workload and cover their patches.

When editors are under pressure to publish stories that sell papers (i.e. gore, crime, deaths, scandals) and move circulation figures upwards, stories about local government decisions, which are not controversial enough to stir a strong response from the reader, are likely to be given lower priority, or, might, at most, end up as a nib (news in brief) in a spare corner of the page.

Hyperlocal
To me this only underlines the importance of hyperlocal news bloggers, as addressed in this blog by Dan Slee, a former journalist who now works in local government. Slee thinks local bloggers should be respected and treated as journalists by council press officers whereas bloggers should behave like journalists, checking facts and studying basic media law.

He refers to another ex-journalist, Ross Hawkes, who decided to found the Lichfield Blog, currently with 16,000 users, when he heard a fire engine run past his house one day and his wife wondered where it was going. He told Slee about his a-ha moment:

“I realised that there was no way of finding out anymore because local papers just aren’t there.”

Case studies
Only a few days ago, the Press Gazette reported that The Argus would be using journalism students from the Brighton Journalist Works as community reporters for the newspaper's website. Web editor Jo Wadsworth will also be training PCSOs to upload news and appeals to the community, virtually turning them into beat bloggers.

This hyperlocal initiative of transforming local contacts into community correspondents was also picked up by Sarah Hartley in her blog. It will have the dual benefit of providing students with valuable experience and multi-media training, while expanding the scope of news covered by The Argus.

Another Newsquest paper, The Northern Echo, responds to ultra-local news content needs by regularly recruiting members of the public – ranging from teenagers to pensioners – as contributors to their website.

Assistant editor Nigel Burton explains here that their community correspondents do not replace staff journalists, but rather supplement their work by covering ultra-local stories they would normally miss. Or give a miss to.

Changing landscape
With resources thin on the ground and space on print paper so precious, is training community correspondents to become hyperlocal journalists groundwork for a more interactive and a less recession-vulnerable type of journalism?

A decision at a local council meeting, which may not make headlines, might still generate debate and mobilise people at grassroots level. So, even assuming there is no harm in limiting coverage of unexciting council stories to 4% of a local paper's content, having a team of community correspondents further scrutinise that 4%under the magnifying glass of citizen journalism might be a step in the right direction towards empowering their communities – as both news generators and news receptors.

How that will eventually change the future definition of news and journalism is a hot discussion topic for another rainy day.

Watch this slide presentation given on hyperlocal by Sarah at the Digital Editors Network event in Preston in October:

Hyperlocal space

View more presentations from sarahhartley.