Session 2 gallery – AJE summer conference – The relevance of the local to journalism education

You might think ‘the local’ might mean the pub for generations of journalists, but this session looked at how journalism education is advocating to ensure the local community, environment, sports and entertainments are well covered, especially as many areas are now ‘news deserts’.

Tor Clarke from the University of Leicester shared his research – on the importance of local democracy journalism – which discussed how the Local Democracy Reporting Service (funded by the BBC) covers council meetings across the UK. They have to choose what to cover and do a minimum of ten stories a week.

Tor discussed one LDR who on starting to cover council meetings was questioned about whether they were ‘allowed’ to be there – despite council meetings being open to the public and press.

Ross Hawkes from Birmingham City University discussed the importance of hyperlocal and reconnecting with communities. He discussed the idea of the ‘semi-professional journalist’ where someone has had some training and understands the core skills and legal restrictions of journalism but isn’t operating full-time in their community – usually due to the lack of finances available to hyperlocal reporting. Ross is the founder of hyperlocal website Litchfield Live. Could newspapers get a resurgence as ‘trusted guides’ in the same way as record shops attracted a new, younger customer base?

Using local radio as a tool for teaching journalism was the subject of Edinburgh Napier’s Aleksandar Kocic’s presentation. Their assessment included a 30 minute news programme and a ten minute podcast including local news, ents, sports and weather.

Rachel Matthews from Coventry University discussed advocating for the significance of the local to the journalism curriculum with the presentation on local journalism as ‘accidental social infrastructure’.

After lunch, delegates will hear keynote speaker for the first day, Franz Wild, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism #TBIJ and from The Journalists’ Charity’s Mary Kearns, talking about the First Jobs Fund which aims to help new journalists.