A freelancer's blog

How to spot a community newspaper in the wild

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.