A QUIET revolution is taking place in local journalism — but churches could be missing out on the opportunity to support and benefit from the fast-moving changes.
For decades, the prospects for local newspapers have grown bleaker. The migration of advertising to big-tech companies such as Facebook and Google, rising costs, and readers’ moving from print to online news consumption have sounded the death knell for many titles.
Last November, the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee published a report, The Future of News (News, 13 December 2024). The committee, whose members include the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, heard evidence about the crisis facing many news providers.
The Public Interest News Foundation, a network of independent local news titles, estimates that more than four million UK residents live in “news deserts” without a dedicated news outlet. These figures are disputed by owners of larger, more established publications. But Lord Hague has described the outlook for local media as “a scene of utter devastation, with most titles dead or dying”.
More positively, the Lords also met editors of new independent outlets that offer hope for the sector’s future. Churches and other faith groups could play a key part in supporting these new media titles, as their journalists seek to encourage community life and hold power to account.
ON MY doorstep, the St Albans Times, an independent online current-affairs magazine, celebrated its 100th weekly edition at the end of December. The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, thanked the publication “for bringing to our attention the problems and challenges of our district, as well as celebrating our local successes”.
Funded by advertising and donations, the St Albans Times, since its launch in February 2023, has transformed the media scene in and around the cathedral city. I have supported the project from day one and helped to develop close co-operation between the publication and churches. The venture has been pioneered by the experienced regional journalist Matt Adams, who has profiled church leaders, included articles written by them, and carried listings of Christmas and Easter church services. The publication has also, rightly, carried criticism and challenging coverage of church activities, including issues at Soul Survivor, based near by in Watford.
“Churches and other faith groups are active community organisations with roots deep into our local area, Mr Adams explains. “We see building links with them as a key part of our news-gathering.”
In contrast, Phil Creighton, who launched independent titles for Wokingham, in Berkshire, in 2015, and for Reading six years later, has had responses from churches that have ranged “from bafflement and indifference to helpful and encouraging”. Often, he recalls, “my encouragement to keep the relationship going was ignored. Some churches really didn’t understand why we wanted to send a photographer along to an event they were holding, while others went out of their way to be helpful.”
Many of the newer publications are seeing value in co-operating with churches. Wendy Robertson edits The Bridge, in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is published online and in print. She says: “Churches and independent local news working together is a wonderful idea, although it is probably dependent on each community. Here, where churches and faith schools and other places of worship are very much part of life, there is a strong case for it. Local clergy are involved both by subscribing and by contributing articles.”
Canon Alan Hughes, an NHS chaplain and a former Vicar of Berwick, says: “The Bridge is firmly established as a means of communicating local news without fear or favour, and has been a great help in promoting projects with which I have been involved.”
OTHER initiatives include Mill Media, which provides quality journalism in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Liverpool. Founded in Manchester in 2020, it now has more than 7000 paying subscribers, and more than 100,000 newsletter sign-ups across the four cities.
Eliz Mason, strategy lead at The Bristol Cable — a media outlet, online and in print, that is 100 per cent member-owned — says that its journalism has “prompted accountability and change to local government policies, sparked criminal and human-rights court cases, and been cited in Parliament several times”.
The journalist Keith Morris sees the growing importance, as a different model, of Network Norfolk, an online and newspaper service that he founded 20 years ago to cover the county’s churches. It has developed as an independent source of church news, with companion sites in other areas, which include Suffolk and Leeds.
“I see ourselves as working in partnership with established local media,” he says, “and I’m enthusiastic about the model spreading to new areas.”
The landscape of local journalism is changing fast. There is ample scope for churches to support these developments, and to play their part in enhancing local democracy and in helping grass-roots initiatives to thrive. It will be churches’ loss if they ignore the opportunity.
The Revd Peter Crumpler is a self-supporting minister in St Albans diocese, and a former communications director at Church House, Westminster.
