Six things learned from Making News Work – Community, Collaboration and Change
Lessons from Lisbon, Manchester, Ipswich, Edinburgh and beyond when it comes to the future of journalism
Good afternoon,
A different digest for you this week as I reflect on the Making News Work: Community, Collaboration and Change forum which took place as part of the Journalism Leadership & Innovation community at the University of Central Lancashire.
Put together by the 2025 cohort of media leaders from across the globe it brought together journalists, editors, local news founders, academics and more in three panels exploring some diverse topics.
Here's some takeaways from what I heard when it comes to the future of journalism and the challenges right now too...
The continued rise of coverage of the coverage. I've mentioned
excellent work in this newsletter a few times as he has 'accidentally created a business', his words, due to the success of his Substack round-up newsletter on (and now London) local news and community goings-ons. His view was there was no shortage of stories being written, events happening, or people doing good things, it was a signposting and discovery problem he continues to solve. The round-up style newsletter has now spawned a format which is taking off beyond just Edinburgh, with 'Minute-style' newsletters popping up around the UK and further afield too. In big metro areas or busy coverage topics, then digesting news is as crucial as creating it...Putting stories on stage. Founder and editor of Mensagem de Lisboa, Catarina Carvalho, found a different problem when they launched their digital-only title. Lisbon was not seeing the kind of local news coverage it deserved, particularly stories which celebrated and explored the community aspect and the fantastic things happening there. You'd think somewhere like Lisbon would be swimming in coverage, but Catarina says this wasn't the case (and they’ve brought some beautiful, long-form, storytelling to pass). They've also worked to create events out of their journalism, bringing some of the people featured in their stories onto the stage for readers to hear them interviewed by their journalists. A way to build community, create more stories (and make a few quid).
An embattled industry and the doubts of collaboration. We also heard from Manchester Evening News editor, Sarah Lester, as she spoke of a number of collaborations across Northern titles - and a recent one crossing the Merseyside/Manchester divide too. Her take was there is so much in common between all sizes of titles, and some common enemies i.e. the tech platforms that the days of not working together were long gone. While Carl Hartley, senior journalist at the BBC and media academic at University of Leeds, reflected on how they had been collaborating with Bradford Community Radio and it fused together very academic parts of the university, with his broadcast knowledge and the passion of the community radio volunteers. He said the biggest hurdle to get over to be able to collaborate was doubting yourself in the face of being around very knowledgeable people, but once you move past that it was incredible to be able to tap into skills and experiences you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
Falling back in love with places. Founder of recently launched Ipswich.co.uk - who famously sold his car to buy a domain name (yes, really!) - Oliver Rouane-Williams lifted the lid on how they were trying to create an 'unashamedly Ipswich-focused media'. It resonated with me, especially here in Preston, as he spoke of the malaise created between having a two-tier council set up (a large county-wide beast and then a smaller district level council, and then MPs which carved up the town, and all being of different political colours). He spoke eloquently not just of coverage but also of wanting to make a different with campaigns (trying to get empty shops let, for example - still a work in progress but the best campaigns tend to take a while to come off!).
Zoebreadtok v Manchester Council. There was an interesting question posed by Sofia Delgado when it came to how you should engage with non-traditional journalists i.e. influencers who are actually creating/doing journalism. The case of Zoe Bread on TikTok v Manchester Council came up, with huge viewership these have become memes and viral moments. Sarah reflected on how there had been pile-ons against media outlets who had just ripped the videos/stories and not credited/given context. She spoke of how they had worked to ensure contact had been made. Whenever you see something trending, it's always worth trying to speak to the person who originated it - as often that post, that video, is only a part of the story. Even if that means you might not be as quick to the story.
Don't under-estimate what a small group of focused people can achieve. During a session on what it takes to achieve meaningful change, my former colleague at Reach, Dan Owen, turned media strategist reflected on the qualities needed to achieve and implement a new strategy. He spoke about how often things begin with a small number of people who are hyper-focused and committed to a mission, but it's about how they then take that idea, bottle it and take it out to wider teams and organisations that is the true test and measure of whether a change strategy is working.
And a few quick-fire comments or quotes, I scribbled down.
Odanga Madung, co-founder of Odipo Dev, spoke about how we are seeing 'youthquakes' when it comes to political movements and political coverage. They don't expect to be served the same old, same old when it comes to politics coverage.
Daniel McLaughlin, podcast editor at Reach, reflecting on collaboration rightly said 'we might all play for different teams, but we all love the game'
And Naomi Owusu, co-founder of Tikaroo, in speaking about taking a product-focused approach to journalism about ensuring the workflows for journalists remained as simple as possible when it came to a route of publication. It's easy to spend a lot of time adding bells and whistles.
As always, an interesting couple of hours and worth keeping an eye on the Media Innovation Studio LinkedIn page to be notified of future ones.
That’s all for this week’s digest, next week I’m at the Publisher Newsletter Summit and the Publisher Podcast Summit and awards (keeping everything crossed for the Parched Pea Podcast, we’re up for two awards!). Look forward to no doubt catching up with people I haven’t seen for a while and crossing paths with new people too. Drop me a line ed@almaonline.co.uk if you’re going to be around and fancy a chat.
Have a great rest of the week ahead.
Keep going.
Ed