Community journalism is a relatively new and rapidly changing area, so I don't feel confident in coming up with a catch-all definition of what makes a community newspaper. On the other hand, I do want readers of this blog to know what I'm talking about, so it might be helpful if I list some of the characteristics that most community newspapers have in common.
A community newspaper...?
- is usually run on a shoestring with a small number of paid staff (Leys News has three part-time paid staff at the moment, but it's more common in my experience for a community paper to have just one or two paid part-timers.)
- usually owes a lot to the work of volunteers, most of whom live locally
- numbers its readers in hundreds or thousands
- usually comes out bi-monthly or quarterly
- actively encourages residents to get involved with the paper
- is usually offered free at the point of use
- often operates in an area which is defined by Government statistics as deprived
- often does things which go beyond a newspaper's core activities: running training courses, organising community fun days, holding drop-in sessions
- is often dependent on grant funding to stay afloat financially
This isn't an exhaustive list of characteristics, but it should give a general idea of what community newspapers are like.