Is Local News Coming Back From The Dead?
Newsquest, the second largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the UK, reported at the start of 2021 that they had seen a significant increase in visitors to their websites. The local news websites that they manage had a total of 45.6 million unique visitors in January, an increase of 32.9% since last year. While this is inline with a general increase in traffic to news sites, there are some unique reasons that local news is rising from the ashes.
The trials and consequences of the pandemic may have increased the traffic to local news sites. Since there have been local lockdowns in place in the UK, many people may have been checking their local news websites to learn of the restrictions in place in their area. The tier system and the sudden divisions placed between regions of the UK, made local news more relevant to the individual than in previous years. Local newspapers could tell readers what restrictions would mean specifically for their town, such as road closures to allow for restaurant dining.
Furthermore, since there have been lockdowns and restrictions of movement in place, people have been more tuned in to their local area. With options for exercise and outdoor activities many people took to walking around their neighbourhood. Just as the housing market experienced a boom due to working from home and an increased focus on our living spaces now that we are trapped in them, perhaps the confinement to local areas has increased the focus on municipal happenings. Additionally, with human contact being limited, you can not get the local gossip from casual encounters with neighbours and friends. Those people interested in the goings-on in their town must turn to the newspapers to satiate their curiosity.
And perhaps consumers are tired of the doom and gloom of national news? When the national news cycle must cover the most pressing and broadly interesting topics of news, they are often going to be heavy and serious. In 2019, the Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that 35% of people avoided the news, stating that
“coverage negatively affects their mood or they feel powerless to affect events.”
Perhaps with much of the national news being taken up with Coronavirus and Brexit, readers who feel powerless in the face of these large scale problems enjoy reading about news items that they can engage with and can act upon, such as news about local politics, building projects and charities? Or perhaps they just want to take a break and read something mundane and inconsequential, as these comments on an article about a pensioner’s one-man boycott of the Co-op over 50p in the Oxford Mail.
Finally, as there is growing distrust of the media in general, with the Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 finding that 69% of the UK feel that the media is not doing well at being objective, perhaps readers feel that local news is the least partisan. The Reuters Institute found that local news was the fifth most trusted news source, with 55% of readers trusting them, which was higher than the average for commercial media. This is likely because they are forced to be partisan because they must maintain a large target audience to earn money. As the report says, “local media often do not have the luxury of reporting on behalf of one political side while ignoring the other.”
2020 has proven that local news still has a place in UK life. To succeed beyond the pandemic, they must embrace digital formats and work to compete with local news groups on social media. But with companies like Newsquest launching paywalls and subscriptions with some success, perhaps there is some hope for this dying sector.
Bibliography
Inpublishing.co.uk. 2021. Local news sites attracting record audiences. [online] Available at: <https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/local-news-sites-attracting-record-audiences-17268> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Edelman Trust, 2021. Edelman Trust Barometer 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2021-01/2021-edelman-trust-barometer.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Reuters Institute, 2021. Digital News Report 2020. [online] Available at: <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-06/DNR_2020_FINAL.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Reuter’s Insttitute, 2020. Digital News Report 2019. [online] Available at: <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline-files/DNR_2019_FINAL.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
