Guardian Local – a good thing
A little while back, I wrote a piece arguing for a ‘Guardian London’ supplement to the Guardian, similar to Guardian America or Comment is Free, both here and at Liberal Conspiracy.
Whether or not the Guardian read, let alone paid any attention to, my thoughts, I am very glad to see this:
Guardian Local planned to launch next year
Starting with Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh, guardian.co.uk is planning to launch a local news project in a small number of locations. At the moment guardian.co.uk is looking for bloggers – with journalistic qualifications “desirable” – to help cover community news, and report on local developments. The project will emphasise local political decision-making, and is scheduled to go live next year.“Guardian Local is a small-scale experimental approach to local newsgathering. We are focusing on three politically engaged cities and we expect to launch in early 2010,” said Emily Bell, the director of digital development at Guardian News & Media.
Read more over at the Guardian. Now, I think there is a difference between the ‘local’ and ‘hyperlocal’ and the coverage I think London – the fifth home nation – needs. However, it takes the same line of wanting to build and support citizen journalism. London also needs better local coverage and, if coverage at the local level in London can be improved, we might be able to do the same for London level coverage.
xD.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
if coverage at the local level in London can be improved, we might be able to do the same for London level coverage
Bit nonplussed by what this means.
jameshigham´s last blog: Ladies and gentlemen, please adjust your urls
October 14th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
On reflection, it’s not a great sentence. What I meant was that the received wisdom has been that the ES prevents any other substantial London newspaper arising because it is too dominant. If borough and sub-borough coverage were to grow, quite apart from being a good thing in and of itself, it would demonstrate a desire for news within London other than from the ES. Once that is done, it becomes easier to show that it is possible to compete with the ES.
As I’ve said before, even if I agreed with the ES’ line (which I don’t), one London-wide paper is not enough for a city of London’s size and importance.