ABSTRACT
This book brings together a series of insights into the contemporary local and community news media landscape in the UK. The introduction maps out what has been a period of recent, rapid change, reflecting on the disruption of traditional business models and the advent of diverse, entrepreneurial reactions to the spaces created by a decline in local mainstream news services. It considers how the ongoing “crisis” in the provision of local news provides a critical space for practitioners and scholars to reflect on emerging models for economically sustainable, participatory local news services. The introduction argues that a reappraisal of local and community news is timely given the “digital disruption” to journalism practices and news business models, exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. In the UK, policy-makers have expressed concern about the sustainability of local news and have thus created a space in which both community and commercial providers alike argue for the value of sometimes very different approaches. The role of the BBC is examined in detail in the introduction with reference to the development of the Local News Partnerships scheme and policy debates about the future of local public service journalism.
