One of the best meetings I ever had in my time in local government was post-2011 riots with police and bloggers.
There we were at Wolverhampton police station, two police Superintendents, four bloggers and me from Walsall Council.
It wasn’t, as the saying goes, an interview without coffee but more a constructive chat.
While riots had gripped other parts of the country, our part of the West Midlands had avoided the worst of it. In part, this was because the Superintendents had used Twitter to shoot down rumours in real time as they emerged.
The bloggers would spot the rumour and one of the officers would shoot them down.
It was a remarkably effective tactic and it became the cornerstone for how we tackled emergency planning.
If you think that’s common sense, you’ll have to remember that the Metropolitan Police were actively discussing how to make a kill switch to turn the internet off at a time of crisis. No, really. They were.
As the meeting ended and we filed out, it only then occurred to me that the local regional paper wasn’t there. Why? Because they didn’t use social media and preferred if people waited until the next day to find what had been going on. No, really, they did.
Why journalism is important
In really simple terms, a source of information makes people more informed so they are more likely to vote. There is more faith in the process if they can see it being held to account.
Without this oil, the democratic process and community cohesion, that ability to get along suffers.
Yes, public sector comms people will often swear about a particular reporter or publication but on balance they are a necessary part of society.
The promise of local bloggers
Around 2009, former civil servant Will Perrin launched the Talk About Local project to promote and explore the idea that a new generation of journalism would emerge. Concerned citizens armed with laptops would start new local news sites.
The movement was helped by thenlocal government minister Eric Pickles who insisted that bloggers – or anyone – could tweet or livestream from public meetings.
In the West Midlands, some good sites emerged such as, WV11 in Wolverhampton, A Little Bit of Stone and Lichfield Live in Staffordshire and the unrelated Telford Live in Shropshire emerged. There were some good debates about how much press officers should support those blogs. I was very much in the ‘treat them like journalists’ camp.
Some of those sites fell away or morphed into Facebook groups. Brownhills Bob’s Facebook group has a staggering 56,000 members. But that early promise of a revolution in the sector never really took hold. It’s hard holding down a job in the day then holding your council to account at night.
So, where is alternative news today?
Two things I want to flag up with you.
Alternative news is a £24.6m economy
Firstly, the Public Interest News Foundation. This is a UK-Government funded project to map alternative news providers. I was surprised to read that there are the best part of 400 websites and radio stations across the UK that cover news in one form or another.
Their 2024 report is a useful read as it sets out the impact of these sites. There are around 350,000 unique users per site which makes them potentially influential. Many are affiliated with regulators such as Ofcom or Ipsos which gives additional confidence to their standards.
In some parts of the UK, where there are news deserts, coverage of news by an independent provider is all there is.
Their map of indie news sites is worth a look if you’re wondering if there’s one in your area.
Email first providers
Aside from that,, a new generation of news providers has emerged that follow an email-first strategy. Mill Media secured funding to launch publications in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Liverpool with sites in Glasgow and London to follow.
Refreshingly, these publications are not powered by clicks but subscribers. So, three or four stories a day are published to subscribers. Those who have opted into the paid model get more content. They are a deeper dive.
The Manchester Mill site tells the story: “The idea was very simple: would people start valuing and paying for local news again if it was done in a completely different way? More in-depth; more nuanced; with stories that were more enjoyable to read and weren’t covered in horrible advertising.”
I’ve been meaning to research what these look like for some time but haven’t had the time to go through the numbers.
So, what?
Of course, the acid test for public sector comms is so what? Independent media isn’t poised to replace traditional media. There won’t be say, Blog Preston sellers in the streets although many providers have experimented with print. The money isn’t there in the sector squeezed by Google and Facebook but this can be an extra voice in the community.
Yes, they could carry your campaign message but they may well want to ask you questions. Like the reporter v press officer relationship this can ebb and flow.
This is how its supposed to be.