Ahead of our Media Power and Plurality event on 2 May, William Perrin, founder of Talk About Local, discusses new policy recommendations from Carnegie UK Trust

We have been working with five great but very different community news projects for Carnegie UK Trust – in Brixton London, Alston in Cumbria, Harlow in Essex, Port Talbot in Wales and Wester Hailes in Edinburgh. Carnegie is exploring how to bolster accountability and democracy in communities, in which news and information plays a vital part.  Talk About Local is helping Carnegie evaluate and support the Neighbourhood News projects – there is an interim report from Talk About Local and from Carnegie.  Each project receives relatively small sums – two payments of £5,000 – for creating new or expanding existing local news and information output.  The emphasis is very much on community news, information and accountability, rather than technology or business process innovation.  Even at this interim stage Carnegie have isolated some pertinent questions for UK local media policy:

1. Why do we see so little support for  local news projects by grant making  foundations, charities and grant  makers, who are interested in the wellbeing of communities and  individuals? What role could such  organisations play?

 2. Would the approach adopted in  Neighbourhood News – of spreading  risk by supporting a small number of  well-organised community media  projects with small pots of funding  and using an independent expert  advisory group to help select winners  – be attractive to other funders?

 3. Could government interventions in  the local news market, such as the  Community Radio Fund, be adapted or expanded to provide opportunities  for local news providers who operate  on other platforms, including web-based providers?

 4. In the debate on regulating media plurality, which is largely about managing market exit of  independent outlets, is there a role  for encouraging market entry by many small web-based providers?

5. What scope is there for amending the regulations relating to the advertising of statutory notices to ensure that the outlets awarded such contracts meet clear requirements in relation to population reach and  provision of at least some ‘public interest’ content, irrespective of the platform used?

 6. What is the best strategy for supporting start-up local news  projects? Can traditional community development structures play a role or is a new infrastructure required?  How can local news projects be  supported to learn from each other?

It would be great to hear from UK hyperlocal practitioners and anyone else in the comments.

Full details of the Media Power and Plurality conference at City University London on 2 May, jointly hosted by University of Westminster’s Media Power and Plurality AHRC project and the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City, can be found here.  William Perrin will take part in a panel asking ‘Local media plurality: is it all doom and gloom?’. This post originally appeared on the TalkAboutLocal blog.

This article gives the views of the author/s, and does not necessarily represent the position of the Media Power and Plurality Project. We welcome further views and contributions to the media plurality policy debate: please contact us if you would like to contribute.