What is the People’s Newsroom?

The People’s Newsroom is an initiative to support the creation and sustainability of community projects that reimagine journalism.

The news and media industry are failing to authentically serve and represent our communities due, in large part, to who owns and runs newsrooms and who tells our stories.

We need an industry that belongs to and is representative of all of us. One where we tell our stories with our own voices, respond to community needs rather than the powers at large and spark positive change. We need newsrooms created by, with and for people who are being let down by the existing media landscape.

The power to build this already exists in our communities. We just need to unleash and grow the local capacity and resilience that underpins successful, self-sustaining journalism initiatives.

The People’s Newsroom initiative focuses on making this available to everyone. We’ll share infrastructure that makes it easier to design and start up new journalism projects, cheaper to run a back-office and more accessible to produce quality information.

We’re kicking off a partnership with the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team in Wales to build a new community journalism project in Swansea. This process allows us to test, shape and scale the framework ahead of launching a pilot next year.

We want to build this initiative collectively, so we’re looking to grow a community around it. We want to collaborate with those who’ve successfully set up community newsrooms, those building them as we speak and those aspiring to do so. We want to hear from organisations and funders who want to collaborate on this project and help us all succeed.

We’ll be exploring:

• A new pipeline into media ownership. Hands-on startup support to design innovative journalism projects and invest in community newsroom leaders traditionally marginalised by the media.

• Shared back-office support (legal, operational, production) to lower barriers to entry and share costs and technology.

• Editorial resources to help support the running of equitable community newsrooms that serve the public interest*.

*What do we mean when we say we’re helping build community newsrooms and public interest journalism?

A newsroom doesn’t have to be a physical space, and it doesn’t have to make a physical product. It might take many forms – from websites to WhatsApp services, from physical newspapers to audio, video or digital engagement. They may have different ownership models – from cooperatives to charities to non-profits. What’s important is that the newsrooms, journalism and models match the specific needs of the communities they’re created by, whether that community is geographical, demographic or identity-based.

They should report from the perspective of their community rather than from the status quo or the powers at large. That, to us, is public interest journalism.

The People’s Newsroom initiative follows in the steps of many incredible public interest community newsrooms that make a real difference in the UK. Among them are those serving geographic communities, such asThe Bristol Cable and The Ferret, those that support their communities to tell stories in their own words, such as Greater Govanhill, those that provide a platform for stories by and about Black women, such as Black Ballad, media organisations centring the voices of Muslim women, such as Amaliah, and those that tell the stories of people of colour from marginalised genders, such as gal-dem. We aim to learn from and build on the power of these newsrooms and make a shared and accessible pathway for this sector to grow.