ABSTRACT
Many “hyperlocal” community news organisations seek to sustain their operations through grant funding from a range of philanthropic sources such as charities and – often indirectly via third parties – global Internet corporations. This has allowed community journalists to explore participatory, citizen-led approaches to newsgathering and freed them from having to generate income locally or over-rely on volunteers. Star & Crescent in Portsmouth is a not-for-profit, independent community news website that successfully bid for emergency support funding from the European Journalism Centre and the Public Interest News Foundation during the coronavirus pandemic. The publication works with local residents, community groups, and students to tell stories that are missing from the mainstream local media and the funding allowed them to test innovative approaches to community news production. This case study draws on interviews with local residents employed on a freelance basis as community reporters as a result of the funding. The chapter reflects on the challenges and barriers three of these citizen reporters encountered during the course of the project and discusses the value of funding sources that support time-limited interventions for community reporting without necessarily resolving the underlying precarity of hyperlocal, community news operations.
