The Government has launched a Local Media Strategy to rescue local journalism, community radio and digital innovation, so the town pigeon that has spent years reporting on traffic cones can finally apply for a press pass and discover whether pecking counts as a journalism qualification.
The strategy is described as the first local media action plan in a generation. That is long enough for a local paper to cover three supermarket openings, six mysterious planning notices and one resident who believes the bins are collected at a suspiciously informed hour.
Up to £12 million is available for digital innovation, community radio and efforts to fill news deserts. A news desert sounds peaceful until you need to know why the high street is closed, whether the council approved a gazebo or which institution has placed temporary traffic lights in a position of permanent authority.
Digital innovation should help local outlets adapt. The traditional report about a loose sheep may now reach every phone in town before the sheep has completed its ambitious stroll through the garden centre. At last, technology can deliver the news instantly, provided the newsroom can first negotiate with an animal blocking the ornamental shrubs.
The strategy also supports Newspapers for Schools and attempts to encourage young people into journalism. This is sensible. Britain needs a new generation able to ask a clear question, recognise a weak answer and attend a village fête without being absorbed into the raffle administration.
Community radio is included too. It will continue the vital civic work of explaining that the bypass is busy, the weather is doing something and the mayor has opened a cake competition with the precise dignity expected of a person standing beside a fondant sponge.
There is also a plan to improve relations between journalists and local public services. This suggests democracy may function better when reporters can ask what happened before a council has finished commissioning the logo that explains why nothing happened.
None of this guarantees a front page free from lost cats, nor should it. Local reporting tells people which small things matter most. A pothole becomes news because it is on your route to work, unlike a national strategy, which becomes news because it has found twelve million pounds and still needs a form.
The pigeon has submitted its application. Its proposed innovation is a rapid response service for crumbs. The Government has called it an exciting new local media pilot, pending proof that the applicant can hold a pen without eating the evidence.
Source: GOV.UK.
