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City hyperlocal news site launches trial print edition

WLDA hyperlocal news website founded by a former regional journalist has published a trial print edition with a view to producing a monthly freesheet.

The West Leeds Dispatch has produced its first physical edition with an initial print run of around 2,000.

If the pilot is successful, the Dispatch could become a monthly publication in the New Year.

It was founded as a digital-only venture by editor John Baron and local residents around six months ago.

John told HTFP: “We’re looking to test the market to see if there’s going to be enough interest in terms of advertisers and readership to put together a regular copy and regular edition.”

He added: “We hit the community centres and libraries about three weeks ago with the pilot edition and the reaction’s been really positive.

“We’ve had a lot of feedback saying the website is putting West Leeds on the map and giving communities a voice that might not be picked up and given coverage in the mainstream media.

“We know our market and we know our readership’s needs, it’s just a case of making the sums add up.”

John, a professional journalist of 21 years, began his career at the Leeds Weekly News.

He then became a reporter on Wharfedale newspapers, where he later switched to sub-editing.

John further worked for Yorkshire Weekly Newspapers and the Wakefield Express, as well as undertaking a training role with Johnston Press.

He also worked on the Guardian’s ‘Guardian Local’ project, and currently works as a journalism teacher on the degree course at the Hull School of Art and Design.

18 comments

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  • November 5, 2015 at 7:04 am
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    Where’s the sense in this backward step? Turning a presumably successful site/ news venture into s printed publication st a time when newspapers are recording record low sales ,incurring crippling costs to produce and who’s audience have turned they’re backs and use digital media instead, it makes no sense whatsoever .
    As soon as ‘print edition’ is mentioned the red pound signs start appearing. The cost of newsprint, printing, setting,design delivery/ad sales and distribution are huge and are likely to drag this venture the same way as the rest of the printed regional press – down into crisis and financial trouble putting the whole thing in danger of financial trouble,closure or collapse.
    Why would anyone even consider producing a printed version of something that’s successful on line?
    Talk about pressing a self destruct button

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  • November 5, 2015 at 8:16 am
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    Tialling a print publication from an existing digital one?
    maybe i am missing something here but just what is the thinking behind this seemingly suicidal move?
    if somethings going well and presumably making money (or at least not losing any ) why ever would you risk financial issues and the possible risk to the whole operation by taking such a backward step?

    To go from online to print flies in the face of all logic and in light of vast losses in both readership,ad revenue and finanacial terms that the regional press is suffering makes no sense to me at all,has john not read news pieces about closures,sales losses and redundancies in the RP print sector?
    i am involved in online publishing having spent 25+ years in traditional regional print and am at a loss to understand why this plan is even being considered?
    i see john is a journalism and design teacher so maybe this is a project rather than an actual business plan or proposal?
    looking at the dire state of the regional printed news medium in the uk must surely flag caution and cause alarm bells to ring if even thinking about such a retrograde move.
    i will be interested to see if this goes ahead,how long it lasts and if another failed newspaper isnt in the news and “puting west leeds on the map” for all the wrong reasons.

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  • November 5, 2015 at 9:36 am
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    To be fair to John, he’s spotted the gap left by the demise of the JP-owned Leeds Weekly News and if anyone is potty here it was JP for dumping a cash cow which I understand brought in a £15k profit a month.

    Good luck to him and I wish him every success.

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  • November 5, 2015 at 11:02 am
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    Giving people a printed paper is a backward step? Pffft!
    You may get your kicks from looking at pixels, but we are a tactile people. Nothing beats the sensation of something physical in your hands.

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  • November 5, 2015 at 11:44 am
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    Whilst I too wish him success the overheads that will be incurred in bringing out a print publication could damage the whole of this operation

    I agree with the previous commenters that to launch a paper on the back of a presumably popular web edition is filly unless all costs are covered and revenue is sustainable

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  • November 5, 2015 at 11:50 am
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    If the Leeds paper did bring in £15k pcm of ‘profit’ then there must be another reason or reasons why JP closed it, no group closes profitable papers if the P&L stacks up.

    To my way of thinking launching a printed paper and incurring unnecessary costs where an online one appears to fulfil a need is pointless and highly risky.

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  • November 5, 2015 at 2:30 pm
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    if only there were a few thousand more like you oor wullie the problems of the regional press would be gone, i know we would all love to be holding bumper issues of our local dailies but those days are long past and what we are left with are mere leaflets.

    I tend to agree with the view that unless theres some kind of strong financial/ad revenue plan in place this initiative looks risky to say the least
    good luck to them though

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  • November 5, 2015 at 11:26 pm
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    I just don’t understand hyperlocal. Why on earth, in a world where our eyes are open to everything across the globe, do we want to focus only on what’s on our doorsteps? And why would any advertiser see sense in paying to reach people only on their own doorsteps? Hyperlocal was the industry’s biggest mistake.

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  • November 6, 2015 at 7:03 am
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    To analyst and the others…
    This supposed backward step reflects the fact that at the ultra local level print is booming while websites make no money to speak of. In Bristol alone we have many local free publications heaving with adverts. It is crucial to dstinguish targeted hyperlocal free publications from the expensive, non delivered regional press.
    The recent conference in Cardiff showed that there is a lot of noise but no money in hyperlocal digital while print is quietly making money.

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  • November 6, 2015 at 11:34 am
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    I still don’t understand the appeal of hyperlocal Sue!

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  • November 6, 2015 at 11:39 am
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    Interesting comments. I wrote a piece recently in Production Journal about the rise of the ‘Parish News’. I think there is a real need for ‘local’ advertisers to have a printed publiction for them to appear in. One plumber told me that when he phoned his ‘local’ newspaper they tried to get him to place an advert in a publiction that covered zillions of square miles and had multiple editions. That’s probably fine for Ford or BMW but he only wanted to fix dripping taps within a four mile radius of where he lived. And that’s why he places his ads in the Parish News.

    I don’t see this venture as a backward step at all. Good luck with it.

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  • November 6, 2015 at 12:18 pm
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    No idea why I lost the ability to spell publication?

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  • November 6, 2015 at 12:22 pm
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    Sue Brown: I want to have your children.

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  • November 6, 2015 at 1:08 pm
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    Baffled – And why would any advertiser see sense in paying to reach people only on their own doorsteps?
    Electricians, plumbers, gardeners etc. They don’t need a global audience.

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  • November 7, 2015 at 12:46 am
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    OK David fair enough but that can’t be the basis for a whole newspaper. Local news became tedious to a lot of people when the internet opened their eyes to the many wonders of the world. Suddenly what was happening to Marjorie at number 52 didn’t seem so important. But hyperlocal takes us back to those ‘over the garden wall’ days which I know many here salivate over but I’m sorry, the world has moved on, the audience wants to broaden its outlook. If you’re looking to sell ads to plumbers to keep a paper going and report on a whole host of trivial matters, that’s not my idea of breaking the barriers of exciting, informative, innovative journalism. But each to his or her own…

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  • November 8, 2015 at 8:38 pm
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    Thanks for everyone’s comments on this – they make for interesting reading. Let me attempt to answer some of the points made here.

    There are plenty of readers in some of our communities who suffer from digital disenfranchisement so the idea behind a print edition was an obvious one for us. It helps us reach people who normally wouldn’t be able to access us online. While our main focus remains on our online/mobile offering, we certainly don’t see print as a backward step.

    We were also able to provide in-depth coverage and analysis of local issues which is more difficult to achieve in a mobile-orientated online environment.
    News organisations simply can’t afford to exist on just one platform in terms of reach and commercial viability.

    Let me make it clear what we’ve produced. It’s a pilot issue to test the water, that’s all. We wanted to see if there was an appetite from readers for a print product and the reaction has been VERY positive. We also wanted a product to take to potential advertisers. We have that now. Again reaction has been VERY positive.

    People are quite right to raise the issues regarding sustainability. It’s on our mind too! That’s why all we’ve produced is a 16-page pilot tabloid so far.

    In terms of production time, we re-purposed content that had already appeared online, as well as adding feature and photographic content specifically for the paper. It was hard work writing and subbing it all, but on balance no more than maintaining a daily news website.

    Let’s talk printing costs. For 2,000 copies it cost less than £300 per issue, including delivery. For 5,000 it would have cost less than £500. Not earth shattering sums, but overheads we will need to meet if we move forward. There were no other costs apart from my time and printing.

    The Dispatch isn’t unique, by the way. We’re the third hyperlocal operation to go into print in Leeds alone in the past two years. The City Talking did it first – they’re about to launch now in their fifth city. That’s right – five regular print newspapers in five cities in two years. Not bad considering ‘print is dead’. Apparently. The other is South Leeds Life, which went into print with a 12-page monthly paper over a year ago.

    Both are sustained by advertising and other funding. Both reach different audiences and advertisers to their online coverage. Both also find the print product pushes readers to their online operations. I won’t speak any more for them – they can speak for themselves if they wish.

    You may also wish to check out the incredible Bristol Cable, which launched last year and has, for me, helped reinvent print in terms of its infographic-led investigative approach. A member-run news co-op no less! Honourable mentions also go to Brixton Bugle and Port Talbot Magnet, both of whom started online and now have thriving print editions. Danny Lockwood and the Dewsbury Press are still going years after JP maintained they had no chance of sustainability (I recall Danny’s bold call for entrepreneurs to join him via HTTP a few years ago – and the cowardly lack of response). Salford Star earlier this year reactivated its print edition due to reader demand. And of course, Greg Hadfield’s excellent Brighton Independent paper (which also innovated online) was so successful it was recently bought by JP.

    So the evidence is there that print CAN still be done successfully IF you identify your niche and execute it well.

    In terms of the first commentor who asserts: “Turning a presumably successful site/ news venture into s printed publication st a time when newspapers are recording record low sales ,incurring crippling costs to produce and who’s audience have turned they’re backs and use digital media instead, it makes no sense whatsoever .”

    This whole conundrum is much more nuanced. Perhaps the questions also ought to surround local papers’ relevancy to readers. Does mainstream media in general cover the communities it serves in enough depth and with enough focus? My answer is no. Due in part to a reduction in staffing levels the art of being a successful old-style patch reporter seems increasingly endangered these days. In terms of web stats – from memory of my time in regional press, generally the most popular stories online are sports-related. It’s a mistake to think your ordinary local news junkies are consuming the same news stories online – from experience the stats just don’t back it up.

    Re the commenter who doesn’t understand hyperlocal who says: “But hyperlocal takes us back to those ‘over the garden wall’ days which I know many here salivate over but I’m sorry, the world has moved on, the audience wants to broaden its outlook.”

    I wonder what you base your research on? A recent report by Carnegie Trust described the hyperlocal/community media sector as growing (http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/hyperlocals-a-growing-sector-addressing-news-gaps/). Talk About Local’s local web list chronicles about 500 active hyperlocal operations across the country (http://localweblist.net/ ). I’d urge you to check out Damian Radcliffe’s excellent Where are we Now? report on hyperliocal for Nesta, Nesta’s Destination Local programme, the launch of the Cardiff Centre for Community Journalism etc etc.

    Both the Yorkshire Evening Post and Hull Daily Mail have recently revamped their community news sections as a result of reader feedback. Hardly a case of no interest. If there is any doubt on the importance and interest in street level community news and info in people’s lives, go on Facebook and look at the activity on some of the local groups and pages on there – they might lack quality and taste sometimes, but they certainly don’t lack activity.

    Apologies for the length of this reply – I’ll finish now!

    Is print THE future of journalism? No, just as websites aimed at desktops aren’t THE answer. But in a niche highly-focussed form it still forms an important part of the news ecosphere in 2015.

    I understand people’s frustrations working for regional press, I know from experience how the cutbacks can sap morale. We can all sit and whinge and whine about it all, but that ain’t the answer.

    Imagine what we could achieve with a little less self pity and a bit more optimism and get up and go?

    Viva la revolution! 😉

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  • November 12, 2015 at 12:29 pm
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    Ignore the naysayers, John, this is a good idea. Niche publishing is flourishing – though it is sad that real local news has become a niche. The fact that many group-owned newspapers have abandoned it doesn’t mean the appetite has gone. Readers love parish pump stuff and, as you say, local advertisers are still willing to invest if the paper looks professional and reaches the right audience. A small industrious team could make a monthly paper like this profitable. Look, for example, at the Holme Valley review in West Yorkshire. Ignore the cynics, talk to your potential readers and advertisers. Let them guide you.

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