PNI Month Notes — August 2021 — Shirish
Over the last few weeks, this project has really started to feel real to me. I’d been excited, scared, optimistic, apprehensive, basically all the emotions over the last month or so, but now it feels like we’re really starting to create something.
A big part of that was working together, in the same space, for the first time. Megan and I met with Shazia and Rocio from EYST, and Andy and Jo from PDR, at the lovely Founders & Co in Swansea. This was the first of a series of workshops we’ll do with PDR to help us design the process of creating a Community Newsroom — initially with EYST, but then hopefully with a bunch of other groups from across the UK.
I’ve generally felt like working remotely works. My job at Bureau Local has always been remote, and I feel like I’ve got lots done. However, I’ve had to admit over the last couple of weeks that I’m at least partially wrong about some of that. After working with Megan in London a couple of weeks ago, and then with the whole team in Swansea this week, it’s clear that there are certain situations where there is no real substitute for being in the same place at the same time. Megan summed it up really well for me when she pointed out that it’s when you’re trying to think creatively or strategically, or when you’re aiming to build relationships, that meeting in person is crucial. Of course our work in Swansea was all of that. Megan had never met Shazia or Rocio in person, and even we needed to do a bit of work together to make sure we had a shared understanding of why we were doing this, and making sure that all the lines between us were clear.
We’re supporting EYST to create a community newsroom, with the hope that it’ll be a pilot for a scalable model that can be rolled out across the UK. However, it’s really important that the EYST newsroom is their project and Bureau Local doesn’t just “take over”. It’s important to me that Shazia and Rocio trust that that’s the perspective we’re coming from and feel like they can push back if we ever get close to doing that. Having said that, we are here to support, and there’s no point in us just stepping back and not getting involved, so there is a fine balance to be found.
There have been two really important shifts in our thinking over the last couple of weeks — which have been really crucial to understanding the big picture of what we’re trying to create. The first shift was a realisation that we’re not trying to create a “newsroom” or a “journalism project” as the thing that communities want and need. The reality is that many people and communities see journalism as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. What we’re actually trying to create is community power, with journalism being one way of achieving that. Really what we’re “selling” is a shared community connection and engagement project, of which journalism is just one output. The de-centering of “journalism” and “journalists” — to instead focus on what it is that communities actually need — will now be central to how we proceed.
The second understanding has come mainly from Shazia and Rocio. We’ve previously talked a bit about if or how we might collaborate with the legacy media industry. What’s become clear is that it’s neither important or desirable for the EYST team to do that. Their project is called “Telling Our Own Stories” for a reason — because that’s what’s important to them. Of course that makes complete sense in an environment where legacy media has consistently attacked, misrepresented, stigmatised and harmed people of colour, refugees and migrants.
It also makes sense to me in the context of work I’ve done around racism in the media, or “Decolonising News”. I did once think that we could make gradual, iterative shifts towards progress in the kind of newsrooms I’ve worked in. I no longer believe that, because those institutions don’t appear to have the will or ability to make the change we need. Instead, I think we have to create entirely new things that ultimately either make the old things obsolete or at worst, force them to change.
The tricky thing is that we work for an organisation which lives in that “old” media world and so we need to be able to explain all that whilst still managing relationships within our organisation and the broader industry. It’s tricky for that not to feel like it’s an attack on the industry or individuals. Additionally, what, as people who are still part of that industry, gives us the right? On the first point, I think it’s clear that the key issues for marginalised communities are with the “media machine” rather than with individual journalists, of which there are many who want to create more inclusive and more representative journalism. However, it’s important that the whole of the industry fully understands the completely rational and well-founded reasons why marginalised communities might reject mainstream media. They are not “hard to reach”, they have been “ill-served”.
These monthly notes are reflections on what The People’s Newsroom team are learning as we build the project. You can read previous notes, and more from Shazia and Megan here.
You can read find out more about The People’s Newsroom Initiative here, and if you’d like to be kept up to date with how the project is developing and how you can get involved, then do sign up to our monthly newsletter.
