A hyperlocal news website broke the news of a bouncy castle tragedy which claimed a young girl’s life.
Your Harlow’s exclusive footage of the aftermath of the incident at a park in Harlow, in which seven-year-old Summer Grant suffered fatal injuries after the bouncy castle she was playing on blew away, was later broadcast around the world after the site was contacted by media outlets from as far afield as the USA and Australia.
Your Harlow publisher Michael Casey was tipped off by a contact about a serious incident in Harlow Town Park on Saturday afternoon.
The bouncy castle had come off its ‘moorings’ and careered over 150 metres down the park.
Michael captured footage of emergency services at the scene responding to the incident, and was contacted by media outlets including Sky, BBC, a number of national press newspapers and news organisations in USA and Australia about using it.
The website has since made a contribution to a Justgiving account set up to help Summer’s family after the tragedy.
Said Michael: “Since we launched we have worked hard at building up links in our town.
“Once a contact rang us on Saturday afternoon regarding the tragic events unfolding, we committed ourselves to reporting the tragic event in order to keep our home town informed.”
He added: “”t was perhaps a compliment that our source told us that then had contacted us because ‘we would turn up and once we were there, we would handle the situation sensitively.”
“When you live and work among a community, you understand how much an event hits the community. My grandchildren were
playing on the very same slides on Good Friday afternoon.
“People feel a connection and the responsibility of grass roots newspapers is to reflect that. We hope we dealt with the situation sensitively.”
Your Harlow was launched in July 2013 after being selected by the Carnegie Trust as a partner in its Neighbourhood News project, and currently receives over 100,000 page views per month.
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Well done Michael, proof that the value of experience, being known in the community, having good local contacts and making an effort to be part of the lives o local people pays off, values the bigger established local newsgroups have cast aside in favour of the cheap and lazy option.
Is there anything that sums up the laziness of the regional press these days more than “got a story? Then email….”
Good work Michael
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Employee X… perhaps add the random tweets from ‘journos’ that often read “Hi its X from Y, can we use this photo? Will give you a credit”
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Agree Employee x and RT another oft used and lazy approach, still it saves employing real journalists and togs doesn’t it and saving money`s what its all about these days,
the days of proper investigative jourmalism and being well known in the community that locals tip you off in the first place are long gone apart from in this type of very local news medium,i just wonder how long it will be before “reporters” are totally replaced by in paper/on line calls to action via an email
RGC at its extreme but a lot closer than many think
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