A case for community-centred journalism

Plus taking the time in the comments

Good afternoon,

This week’s digest is ready to go and land in your inbox with a few interesting links which have dropped across my feeds in the last week or so.

Let’s get straight into it and there’s a chunky one to begin with.

Advancing Community-Centered Journalism - Damian Radcliffe - there’s a lot to get through in this as the report for the University of Oregon explores how particularly local journalism can look at becoming more community-based (and is very well placed to be, I’d argue!). In his Medium post then there’s ten key takeaways, I’d highlight these two

Newsrooms must embrace transparency and accountability to demonstrate how they are putting community-led principles into action.

And

Journalism schools have a key role in preparing the next generation for this work. Many are not yet in a position to embrace this role.

At its simplest level then I think community-centred journalism often boils down to taking the time to reply, or explain, a publishing decision.

Michael MacLeod

has spoken about this before, his excellently titled ‘flywheel of community’ where he takes the time to respond to everything sent in and thanks people for that. We try to do the same on Blog Preston, be that email or socials.

This could be on email, in person, on socials, or elsewhere, but whenever I’ve done this or seen it done then it tends to help with building trust between a publication, an editor and a readership.

And showing your face is important too - be that at events or just generally on social occasionally. There’s a hard to define value in people understanding there’s human beings on the end of the stories. Here’s our Blog Preston team drinks the other day in one of Preston’s fine venues… which had a really nice reaction on social.

I am rubbish at selfies so Ellie took control of the situation, thankfully

For the journalism schools point, I guess this means we need to ensure journalists are comfortable involving the audience in reporting. Most of the strongest stories I’ve done over the years have started out as a tip-off from a reader, so the notion of community-centred journalism is not new essentially. I’ll keep this in my mind as we embark soon on teaching a module at the University of Central Lancashire’s journalism school where third year journo students will come up and pitch, and then prototype, a new media brand (across any or multiple platforms). How do they involve the audience and build a community as part of their plans?

The best and worst of readers - Ian Carter - an interesting insight shared by Iliffe’s editorial director as many of their smaller more community-based local news sites have introduced a more tightened paywall approach. In a sense, it apes the Substack model asking for a small monthly or discounted annual fee to directly support content. Ian’s shared some of the reader responses, the positive and the negative. What’s well worth looking at is the time and care taken by the editor of the Bishop Stortford Independent to explain the decision and respond to reader comments.

Confidence in the field: A journalist’s guide to empowered reporting - NCTJ - it is not natural human behaviour to go knocking on the door of someone who has just lost a child, but that’s something journalists sometimes have to do. They often find themselves in a number of different, highly charged, scenarios. And with the rise of the digital world then actually having a conversation has become more limited - even if voice notes might be bringing that back to an extent. Interesting to see the NCTJ tackling this head on with a course that really focuses on giving new reporters the confidence to physically speak to people or pick up the phone. I’m sure there will be a fair bit of ‘why is this course even needed’ but it’s a genuine symptom of the technological changes affecting not just journalism but life in general. Hat-tip to Laura Elvin at SWNS but put forward some of her reporters to provide some top tips.

My top tip, and maybe it’s a British thing, always apologise for interrupting someone’s day (no matter how much your editor is breathing down your neck) and remember to say thanks to someone for taking the time (again, even if your internal monologue is screaming at you to get into the car and go or they’ve literally screamed at you).

Hope those brighten your Wednesday, and you’re having a good week.

Keep going.

Ed