The local news crisis: when innovation and tradition both fall short

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It is hard out there for local journalism. We have seen lots of different attempts to make it work in recent years, and a few telling closures that show the grim reality for independent publishers.

Last year, The Lincolnite went bust - an innovative digital publication run by Daniel Ionescu, an entrepreneur with a strong commitment to high-quality journalism and a determined attempt to build a sustainable model. It still couldn't make it work.

A couple of weeks ago, the South London Press stopped printing after over 160 years, following a slow decline from its pre-social media heights.

These closures make Indie News Week - this week's celebration of the hundreds of independent publishers across the country working to fill gaps in local news - feel both necessary and precarious.

Part of this week - and the common narrative among independent publishers - is to see ourselves in opposition to legacy media and the corporate publishers that provide most of it.

I'm just as turned off by intrusive pop-up ads as the next reader. I'm no more keen on notifications for 'local' murders in car parks 500 miles away from where I live. But I think this week might be a good week to recognise that the challenges of local news publishing cannot be solved solely by corporate publishers choosing to be less bad.

For over 15 years it has been clear that the old business model for local news no longer works. But so far, all the models that have been tried in response also don't work.

In many areas in the UK, it is now impossible to provide mass market high quality local news paid for by newspapers sales and/or print advertising. It is equally impossible to do so paid for by online advertising.

While this is, to some extent, also true for national news and specialist publications, there is a stronger argument that these markets are evolving rather than dying. In the case of local news, the market has failed.

Local journalism is a public good - rightly provided by independent businesses rather than the state. For many years it was a by-product of a commercial market. Now it mostly isn't.

Small investment, big impact

London, where we're based, enjoys many successes and privileges but its local news landscape is leading the country in its desolation. In most of London's 32 boroughs, there are now no local journalists on the ground at all. Only a third of London's boroughs have dedicated BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporters.

But this is the wider trajectory across the country. The past few years have seen parliamentary committees ramp up their handwringing. But so far, practical action has been limited.

At Social Spider CIC, we currently produce five London boroughwide publications with a staff team of nine. Aside from a corporate with a small presence in the plushest part of one of our boroughs, we are the only publisher reporting on the ground in an area with a population of 1.6 million.

We haven't found some magical solution to turn back the clock to a mythical golden age. Through hard slog and a just-about-manageable combination of income streams, we're doing a decent job of creating a sustainable model with the resources available. And we would love to do more.

Critically, we now have over 800 members of the public making a regular donation to support our journalism and make sure it is available for free to everyone.

A combination of income streams could deliver a decent local news publication in most local areas. But part of the mix is going to be a significant minority of the population paying for local news at a level that goes beyond a basic fee for the service.

There are several different ways that the government could improve the landscape for local news. This includes reforming the rules around public notices so that they are targeted at local publications that are widely read by local people, as opposed to conforming to archaic rules around print and frequency.

But one of the biggest ways to help would be to look at how to support publishers - of whatever corporate structure - to produce original local journalism while incentivising local people to pay to support it.

To use London as an indicative example, in at least 20 of London's 32 boroughs, if the government (or Mayor of London) provided match funding for 500 £5 per month donations from local people - at a cost of £750,000 per year - there could immediately be four times as much original local journalism in those boroughs as there is now.

There may not be much money to go around but local news is one of the few sectors of the economy where a relatively small amount of funding could have a transformative impact. It's time for action.

David Floyd is managing director of Social Spider community-interest company, publisher of five community newspapers: Waltham Forest Echo, Haringey Community Press, Enfield Dispatch, EC1 Echo **and** Barnet Post.

He also supports, researches and writes about social enterprise and social innovation, specialising in social enterprise development and social investment.