People often say to me that editing West Leeds Dispatch, writing stories all day and training up our wonderful community reporters, must be my dream job. And it is - but if only it was that simple!
At the time of writing on Friday morning, this week has seen 21 articles go up on the website, either written by myself, community reporters or Carla, who is a smashing Leeds University journalism student on a fortnight's work experience with us.
On Tuesday I was honoured to represent West Leeds Dispatch, and more than 120 independent news publishers across the UK, as a small part of a session giving evidence to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee sitting at Cardiff University, as they investigate the sustainability of local journalism.
My belief is that local journalism is not only vital to the fragile ecosystem of communities up and down the country and to local democracy, but that it is only sustainable as long as the sector evolves properly and effective changes are made to support all levels of journalism.
There needs to be a level playing field when looking at the sector as a whole, which can only happen if the role of independent publishers like West Leeds Dispatch is recognised and respected.
There must also be consideration as to where grants and funding from the public purse are channelled, so they aren’t inflating the profits of multi-title publishers and the bonuses of their CEOs and shareholders. Funding should be used to help employ passionate and skilled journalists who will hold the powerful to account and speak up for the voiceless. And also support community based organisations like West Leeds Dispatch to thrive and continue their work!
There needs to be an active campaign against clickbait and readership targets, government public information campaigns must be shared across independent titles, and digital titles who meet certain criteria must be afforded access to the same revenue streams for public notices as print titles.
Over lunch I chatted to MPs asking them to take on board the written evidence we and others have submitted, and continue to value the contribution of independent news titles in their communities. I hope they will make the right recommendations and await the outcome of the ongoing investigation.
With thanks to all at Impress - The Independent Monitor for the Press, Public Interest News Foundation, and the Independent Community News Network ICNN - Cardiff University for their excellent continued support. And thanks to you for your support - without you I wouldn't be here writing to you now.
As for the rest of the week, I've had a productive meeting with our chair and treasurer to discuss our progress and future strategy as an organisation, met with a couple of partners who we've been working with to help make us more sustainable going forward, chatted with someone who kmight be able to help us attain our goals and approached someone with a view to them joining our board in the future.
And, most importantly, last night we held week four of our latest community reporters' course at our community newsroom at Bramley Lawn, which was attended by seven enthusiastic volunteers. Three of them have already had either articles or photos published on the website!
What's given me a lot of satisfaction? Yesterday's article giving people a voice and holding the council/West Yorkshire Combined Authority to account over the unfinished - and shoddy - work at Bramley Bus Interchange. Work stopped was supposed to have been completed by New Year's Eve and actually stopped in February - but it's still not finished. We had to wait eight days for a comment from the council's press office, but with a bit of persistence we got there in the end. It's important we shine a light on issues like this.
Oh, and on Monday - for the first time since before Covid - we're (re)launching our community news cafes, where people can come and meet me as editor over a friendly cuppa and biscuits. Feel free to pop by on Monday, 10am-11.30am and let me know about anything we should be covering, or just nip in for a firendly cuppa and a chat. We're based in our community newsroom at Bramley Lawn and it's be lovely to see you.
Until next time...
John Baron, Editor
