As local press feels the squeeze, could amateur efforts save the day?
Notables profiles a remarkable local news website
London, 17 Mar 2006 | These are tough times for local newspapers. Earlier this month a Labour MP proposed greater protection for the industry, in the face of job cuts and sell-offs of the regional press. 'MP speaks in support of newspapers' is not a headline one expects to read.
But the situation is grave. Austin Mitchell, the MP proposing a debate, told The Guardian: "I'm primarily concerned about job cuts and the prospects for the local press, which is profitable but being cut to blazes. They [owners] want a higher rate of return. It's mainly greed."
Local newspapers have for over a hundred years been at the centre of their communities. The best are highly respected, even the worst are well-read, and all are used as sources for local information. Even if readers don't trust the news reporting of their local rag, it's still the first place they'll turn to for cinema times, property listings, and free ads. Schools use local newspapers for easy publicity, and local newspapers use schools to boost sales. Stick a picture of 100 grinning kids on the front of the Tewkesbury Advertiser and proud parents all over Tewkesbury will buy a copy for themselves and the extended family.
Increasingly, however, local newspapers are being bought up by conglomerates. Once upon a time there was at least an element of parochialism and local ownership, but nowadays true independents are scarce. The biggies - regionals like the Bristol Evening Post and the Leicester Mercury - are owned (as they have been for many years) by the Northcliffe Group, part of the Daily Mail and General Trust. Consolidation is happening at a lower level, too, with companies like Newsquest, Trinity Mirror, and Johnston snapping up once-proudly independent local papers.
This, according to the National Union of Journalists, means lower pay and poorer working conditions. It means that a greater number of local reporters are stuck working for low wages for companies hostile to trade unions. NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear commented: "The government must take action before it is too late and before a handful of greedy media giants have cut a crucial thread in the fabric of our society and begun to unravel democracy itself."
It's not just about pay. Good journalists aren't in the job for the money - there isn't very much to be had, in any case. On the whole, they're in the reporting game because they think that reporting and investigating local news is important, both to local communities and to wider society.
All, however, may not be lost, according to the shining example of local news reporting that can be found at Ruberyvillage.co.uk, run by 16-year-old Nic Parkes, where a dedicated team of teenagers is working hard to fill the gap left by the bigger local newspapers.
Hope for the local press?
Nic, who like any 16-year-old lives at home with his parents in Rubery - 'nine miles from Birmingham, a lovely place to live, although not really looked after too well by the district council' - launched the website as a personal project in August 2001. Since then he’s seen massive success with the website transforming from a hobby project to a major source of news for Rubery’s 16,000-odd residents.
Nic now mixes editing Ruberyvillage.co.uk with studying for a few handfuls of GCSEs. He told Notables: "The site started pretty much because it's the only way you can get some decent experience when you're under 16. Originally, it was just me - but Nathan, my business partner and then assistant editor, got on board and gave me a hand. Since then, we've grown to 15 members of staff.”
Like any news source, the website is not above criticism. Some of its articles seem biased in favour of local bodies such as the police and the local council. And like any newspaper, you’re can often to expect the latest pictures of a ceremonial tree-planting on the pages of Ruberyvillage.co.uk. Local journalism, it is frequently noted, is all to often a game of putting up with the mundane while you wait for either a murder, or a promotion.
But tree-planting reports should not be looked down on, for they are the bread and butter of the local press. What’s more, local news only works if it praises the good aspects of local government and society, as well as damning the bad.
This was a point that Nic is eager to expand on. “We do indeed bias some of our reports, he said. “However, sometimes I feel it's necessary. We do give everyone the same chance though. Nearly every story we write is biased in a different direction. I don't feel any allegiances towards any of the councillors - but I do feel one towards Rubery, so I am going to be positive about things I feel are good.”
These are words which would not embarrass any local newspaper editor, and it has to be said that RuberyVillage, under Nic’s editorship, has not shied away from tackling more controversial stories.
"Sometimes, being radical is good"
Nic continued: “Some stories have presented ethical issues, and I think in general each one has to be deal with differently. I have called on my contacts a few times to ask them what they think about an issue, and I get through it that way. We're certainly not afraid to be controversial - we have broken exclusives several times that some people would consider to be "unethical" - including breaking news that four council officers were losing their jobs before even they knew. Sometimes, being radical is good.”
Crucially, the website seems to have kept a good name in the local community.
“We're well respected by the local people - and are quite often brought up as 'excellent' at meetings – without our own prompting, of course. We've never advertised, but we get 200,000 hits a year, so we must be doing something right.”
Indeed, enter the word ‘rubery’ into Google, and it's Ruberyvillage.co.uk that appears at the very top of the list of results: no mean feat for a part-time project with a shoestring budget. And Nic’s original intention of using the website to get some much-needed experience in the media seems to have paid off. He’s making links with local media organisations, including the professionals at the Bromsgrove Standard.
As Nic proudly explains, a former editor of the paper once confided that she’d have little news from Rubery were it not for his website – “We almost work as a kind of press agency, in that sense,” he continues. The relationship between the Standard and Ruberyvillage.co.uk extends as far as sharing photos - something that few local websites can take advantage from.
The future of the local press
With independent newspaper companies proving woefully inadequate in providing local news portals for the communities which they serve, it's left to enthusiastic amateurs such as Nic to fill the gap.
What he's doing is not the sort of aimless, casual, comment-based, 'citizen journalism' (read: pretentious blogging), but genuinely independent online journalism. Ruberyvillage.co.uk may be an amateur effort, but it's a very good - and very popular - one. With a firm base in Rubery, Nic's team is now spreading its wings and looking to the future. And the media giants had better watch out.
Over the next few months Notables will be tracking the progress of Rubery with a regular summary of events taking place in the village, as reported by Ruberyvillage.co.uk. Each week's diary will include links to the relevant new stories. We'll be publishing the first edition soon.
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