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A roadmap for the BBC’s support of local journalism

Instead of strengthening the UK’s local news monopolies, here’s how the BBC could support civic journalism.

By Dan Hind
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NUJ Protest in Norwich against Archant's staff cuts. Credit: Roger Blackwell

The White Paper on the future of the BBC published on May 12th notes that the corporation has made a number of proposals to establish ‘a positive partnership with the local news sector’. These include a ‘Local Public Sector Reporting Service’, which would ‘report on local institutions.’

The BBC has already indicated that it intends to fund 150 journalists to work in the local and regional sectors. This means that from next year a population of around 400,000 people – a city the size of Bristol, say - could expect to have a journalist reporting full time on local government and other public sector institutions.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0