Local News & Information

that local journalism is a crucial facet of society that connects us to the places we live and the people who live around us and gives us a sorely needed sense of shared reality in an atomised age; that this kind of journalism has been decimated in Greater Manchester and pretty much every other community in this country because its old business... See more

Six years later, Jeff Jarvis wrote a frustrated post on his blog Buzz Machine. Hurricane Sandy had just devastated his New Jersey neighborhood. He needed to know which streets were passable, where power crews were actually working, which gas stations had fuel. His local news outlet published stories about the devastation but left the community on... See more

While technological innovations such as Facebook and NextDoor have made community-level discussion groups more accessible than ever, the public continues to view local journalism as more interesting, relevant, and trustworthy (Le Quere, Naaman and Fields, 2024). Those who read local news are more informed and more likely to be involved in their... See more

People will pay for the convenience of not poring through internet sludge all day and having someone clarify what they need to know.”

There is a sense of validation and pride that comes from being witnessed in a communal setting. My son’s high school wasn’t known for sports but one year it happened to have one of the top long-distance runners in New York state. There was no shortage of information about this guy. Beautiful color images of him huffing and puffing could be found on... See more

The new public square is not centred on a stable set of shared sources; instead it is structured by a small number of competing, for-profit platform companies bundling a bewildering array of stuff for different people in different ways through various ranking and recommendation algorithms.

Audiences and advertisers seem to prefer this new reality,... See more

Editors are encouraged to participate in community life — attending festivals, visiting new restaurants — but the company also leans heavily on user-generated content and tips.

“In mature cities, the inbox is overwhelming,” Heafy said. “Often our staff are getting information ahead of traditional broadcast and newspaper outlets.”

Technology helps... See more