One of the founders of Lichfield Live has highlighted the “positive story” of the publication’s new local newspaper at a journalism industry event.
Ross Hawkes spoke at the launch of the Public Interest News Foundation’s annual report.
The review highlighted challenges facing the independent local news sector, including declining audiences, changes to social media platforms and wider funding issues.
But Ross, who also acts as editor of The Lichfield and Burntwood Independent, said things were looking brighter locally.
“We have seen our digital audiences continue to grow on Lichfield Live with 2024 set to be another record year – and the new newspaper has been successful so far in terms of reader response and support from advertisers.
“There’s still a long way to go though until we can say we have a fully sustainable local news model – but if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the part few months since launching a print publication is that you can never underestimate the audience.
“For a number of years our annual reader survey has told us a newspaper was needed for Lichfield, Burntwood and the surrounding villages, but the industry view was always that print was dying and was no longer viable.
“But we’ve seen people accept an alternative method of getting the paper which involves them having to go out and collect a copy, which just goes to show that the public are as interested in local news as they ever were.”
Ross Hawkes
But despite the initial success of the new newspaper, Ross said local journalism remained a challenging industry to operate in.
“As an independent community interest company we are reliant on a mix of donations, advertising, grant funding to cover our costs – and that’s without being in a position to employ staff to carry out the core functions of reporting on local news, managing advertising and distributing our newspaper.
“Without the revenue continuing to come in, both the paper and the website – as well as journalism covering our area – will fail to exist.
“In the long term, we would like to be in a position where we can create a truly sustainable future for both the website and newspaper so that informed communities in our area are not entirely reliant on goodwill and volunteers.
“But in the meantime, we’re always keen to hear from people who think they can lend us their expertise to help us on that journey.”
Ross Hawkes
The latest edition of The Lichfield and Burntwood Independent is out tomorrow (30th May). To find out where you can get a copy click here.
