Call for innovation fund to stimulate a new decade of local news
Plus: Gen-AI changing the 'bell curve' of digital content + value of news and publishers in search results row escalates
Good afternoon,
This week's digest is making its way to you from the train to London Euston - as it's a bit of a surreal moment. Heading to Buckingham Palace for a regional media reception as one of many people working in local journalism across the UK to attend.
It's a far cry from 2009 and when Blog Preston began, a humble Wordpress blog, that it's now part of the Independent Community News Network (ICNN) from where the invite came and independent news titles are part of the throng set to attend the palace.
Aptly, there's two interesting developments in the independent and local news space to highlight in this week's digest. So let's get going before the train WiFi cuts out...
Regenerating Local News in the UK - Local News Commission - there's lots to unpack in this report, and full disclaimer I was one of many people interviewed for input into the report. It's wide-ranging and covers many of the challenges faced by independent news providers. One of the key bits, and I'm encouraged to see it included, is the idea of an innovation fund to encourage and stimulate both established and emerging providers. Journalism.co.uk has picked up on this point. A fund that encourages new approaches, and encourages collaboration between established, independent and emerging local media, would be very welcome I think.
There's lots of people doing interesting things, but also balancing the day-to-day effort and operational grind that is required for operating in local journalism. Giving those a bit of headspace to let ideas flourish and become more established would hugely help both the established media firms and emerging ones. The full report can be found here.
Linked to this, it's interesting to see Rhiannon Davies - who I undertook the Journalism leadership and innovation programme with in 2022 - establish the Greater Community Media initiative. Aimed at providing training, support and building on Rhiannon's fact-finding mission to the US which is far more advanced in terms of its journalism/media support ecosystem. Good luck to Rhiannon and Luca on their new venture.
The bell curve of digital content, and how AI has changed it - Barry Adams - a great piece digging into how having signature content to break through that is truly original is going to become every more crucial. Barry reflects on how AI-assisted content is meaning that 'mediocre content' is likely to make up more of the bell curve of content online. How do you produce and ensure original content is surfacing and breaking through that malaise?
Row over the value of news content to Google escalates - Press Gazette and others - there's been a number of studies recently attempting to estimate the value of news content and journalism to Google's search results. Not surprisingly Google has conducted their own research and hit back - saying news content is not as valued as the media thinks it is when search results load. I'm surprised by their Discover results, you have to wonder what exactly Google Discover in those countries was filled with, if not being powered by publisher-produced content?
And that’s the digest for this week, hope as usual it’s interesting and thought-provoking.
I’ll finish with an update on the In-Between Places event we held in Preston last week - co-organised by ourselves at Blog Preston it brought together more than 40 people from across the city’s architect, developer, civic, heritage communities, and interested Blog Preston readers, into a room to try and find a way forward for ten empty buildings in the city.
It’s my belief as local media we have a unique ability to bring together disparate groups and people and find a common way forward - or at least let debate happen. We’ll be taking the results of the event and producing an in-depth report about the future of the buildings in question. And you’ll never know where it may lead…
Thanks as always for reading and if you’ve found today’s digest useful then please do share on with others. And if you spot something I should be including then ed@almaonline.co.uk all tips/links are welcome.
All the best for the rest of the week ahead. Keep going.
Ed