I stumbled across the nose for this week’s review during an NCTJ visit to the Leicester Centre for Journalism at De Montfort University.
Over a working lunch, director John Dilley asked if I’d like to stay on for their student District Reporter of the Year Awards.
Later that day I stood at the side of the room as Dilley proudly spoke to 17 members of his NCTJ post graduate course, making sure he mentioned at least one story for each of them from the previous nine months.
His students, like many on similar courses, are each given patches across the town and work in teams to produce real stories each week. But at Leicester, not only do they produce these on double-page spreads as coursework; they also contribute them to www.citizenseye.org, a community news website.
This is run by local blogging enthusiast John Coster to “enable community people in Leicester and Leicestershire to become ‘Citizen Reporters’, providing a professional media outlet for community groups to promote their events”.
Citizens’ Eye is so well-established that it has a relationship with the Leicester Mercury that is strong enough to warrant actual desks in the newsroom, and the best stories gathered by the website are then used in the newspaper.
This includes any cracking tales from students’ at Leicester’s Centre for Journalism, and so Dilley was not alone in talking to his students…he was joined by Leicester Mercury deputy editor Richard Bettsworth.
I don’t if anyone else remembers, but I recall how exciting, nervous even, it was when REAL journalists used to visit when I was at this stage 20-odd years ago (in Preston, in my case).
And so too it was for the Leicester students in front of Bettsworth: goggle-eyed at the fact the deputy editor, no less, was addressing them, so much so that they had to be prompted by Dilley to ask questions.
Bettsworth didn’t only take the time and trouble to turn up; he also brought with him a £100 cheque, and handed it to Laura Elvin, crowning her District Reporter of the Year.
Dilley was genuinely as proud as Punch, telling me: “There was no single story that won it, just weeks and weeks of getting out there and talking to people to find good, old fashioned off-diary stories. Laura consistently stretched herself and got the best out of people.”
Bettsworth mentioned that many, if not most, of the reporters at the Mercury had originally trained at De Montfort, so close are the paper’s links with the University.
This was proved by Elvin: not only did the 23-year-old walk off with her cheque, but she has now also been offered a job as trainee reporter by the Mercury.
Yes, I know this is a detailed, local story, but this is what hyperlocal journalism is about, and watching these mechanics helped me to understand that the Mercury does it well, with personal effort and detailed relationships.
On the way home I picked up the Tuesday 25 May paper, and it provided plenty of examples of local issues that Mercury reporters themselves are obviously driven to gather.
The splash was headlined ‘Hope in bid to stop greenfield homes’, linked to new government plans to change new homes targets.
For me, this was not the most thrilling tale, and I’m not sure it warranted a wipe-out across five wide columns. But it was a story that involved many community campaign groups who’d been opposed to the original idea, so was of interest to many locals.
Other neighbourhood stories had been carefully gathered and not just crammed in as nibs, including ‘First free-running park is a real coup for teenagers’ on page three, reporting a £40,000 development for locals at Eyres Monsell.
And ‘Dummy camera to tackle speed issue’ also caught my eye on page seven, revealing how a Melton resident angry at constantly speeding traffic had cleverly placed a cardboard box painted yellow to try to slow cars down
There was a good smattering of crime reports, courts and council throughout, a detailed listings page, a spread of letters, and a 16-page ‘The Business’ pull-out.
To be honest, the total story count was not the most impressive: 145 reports on 35 pages in the front end, and barely 20 stories in just six pages of sport.
But here’s the rub: the 60-page Northcliffe daily cost just 36p, surely one of lowest cover prices in the UK?
It needs to be. Like other cities, Leicester has changed fast, and is probably as close as Birmingham to becoming 50pc indigenous. This means tough editorial calls to be relevant for first and second generation citizens without frustrating traditional readers.
Today’s blog has only provided the quickest snapshot of the paper itself. But it was the reach into the community through Citizens’ Eye and the hyper-local student journalists that impressed me, and for that Mercury editor Keith Perch and his team should be commended.
The Mercury is now England’s 5th biggest daily, selling 58,284 a day, down by 10.2% in the latest ABCs. It has to be hoped that its concentration on news that matters to locals that can’t be found anywhere else will help flatten its circulation trends as the economy picks up in years to come.
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Comments
Quentin (02/06/2010 10:03:21)
Where has your sudden enthusiasm for hyperlocal journalism come from?
Steve Dyson (02/06/2010 14:05:53)
I reckon it’s just a modern name for patch reporting and community correspondents, Quentin. Always been keen on both.
Davy Gravy (02/06/2010 14:26:50)
In fairness, the Mercury has been more proactive than most newspapers in establishing itself as part of the community, rather than just reporting on it. Nick Carter was very forward thinking in this regard back in the mid-90s, so it’s good to see his successor is keeping it up. There is a strong argument for showing that the sales decline would have been faster had Nick not moved the paper firmly in this direction.
Steve Dyson (02/06/2010 14:47:39)
I reckon it’s just a modern name for patch reporting and community correspondents, Quentin. Always been keen on both.
Happy Hack (02/06/2010 14:54:26)
Great blog again Steve. Just wondered when you are going to review the Express and Star?
Steve Dyson (02/06/2010 16:03:06)
Soon, Happy Hack, soon… or at least when I’ve got a double-slot of time. A paper with that high a circ and relatively shallow declines needs more analysis than some… They’re doing something right (or certainly less wrong); or is it the very traditional readership in the seven or so towns and cities it serves? It certainly calls for a careful eye.
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