CCI-based PhD researcher, Sarah Cheverton, has published a chapter in a recently launched book from Routledge, called Reappraising Local and Community News in the UK.Media, Practice, and Policy. The book offers an analysis of the ongoing ‘crisis’ in the provision of local news, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and provides a critical space for practitioners and scholars to reflect on emerging models for economically sustainable, participatory local news services.

The chapter is called ‘Supporting hyperlocal reporting. global funding, local voices’ and examines a Portsmouth-based community reporting project led by independent local news website, Star & Crescent, that took place in 2020 to capture the impact of Covid-19 on local residents in Portsmouth. The reporting project was funded by the European Journalism Centre and the Public Interest News Foundation, and enabled Star & Crescent to employ four local citizen-journalists for the project, three of whom are featured in the chapter as interviewees. The chapter explores the challenges facing independent local news publishers like Star & Crescent in the context of the current ‘crisis’ facing local news, a crisis of both failing business models, and of diverse, inclusive representation in both newsroom and the news.

Sarah Cheverton is a PhD researcher at the University of Portsmouth’s CCI faculty and her research is focused on the local news crisis. Sarah is also the Editor and co-founder of Star & Crescent, and plans to utilise the learning from her research to relaunch the website in 2022.