Local Democracy Reporting Service: a model for public broadcasters?

The demise of local news organisations is not isolated to the UK. A recent IPI Global Network Report determined that “Local news media is the most disrupted sector … [and] the most urgently in need of assistance.” The model of the LDRS has been replicated elsewhere. In New Zealand, public broadcaster RNZ launched its own model in 2019, based on the BBC’s version. The Pacific island nation has seen a development of its own democratic deficit, with reporter numbers dwindling over the past decade.

The manager of the service, Nina Fowler, told PMA the service has worked best when it is at its most local. “One of the local democracy reporters picked up that free doctors’ visits were ending in three local high schools – and that led to a student-led petition against the change, and the students just getting really involved and writing letters and attending meetings, and eventually they got an apology for not involving them in the decision.” A review into the service found “the scheme is doing its job. It is not perfect, but it is producing stories that would not otherwise have been written and which assist the audience to understand the decisions and actions done in its name.”  After its initial success, RNZ secured funding to double the size of the service.

But while the BBC has been the model, Fowler is looking to develop the service even further into one which works specifically for New Zealand. “I’ve been very grateful to be able to look to the BBC’s scheme, especially early on, but I’m strongly of the view our scheme will need to continue to evolve – New Zealand needs a scheme that’s unique to New Zealand. For example, I’m very excited about our current iwi radio station partnerships, and those continuing into the future.”

Canada has also adopted its own version: the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI). However, in this instance, the funding comes straight from the government, and it is managed by The Canadian Press, not CBC/Radio-Canada. The LJI is now bigger than the BBC’s LDRS, and there are also plans to roll-out the scheme to include “not just geographical communities, but also cultural communities, like indigenous peoples, or French-speaking communities,” Barraclough said.

But whether it will be picked up further afield is not known. While there has been interest from public broadcasters in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and in the Basque region in Spain, there has been no pickup. “The BBC occupies such a unique role in the UK even among public broadcasters,” Barraclough said, “that I think, one asks the question – how easy would it be to get it started elsewhere? And I don’t know. If you were funded by direct government grant rather than by license fee, if you had just that little bit less independence, how would it change everything?”

Key asset to public media mission

The LDRS supports local communities, local journalists and contributes to a pluralist media environment at a local level. It also ensures small newspapers are not forced to abandon their own mission to provide public interest news, in favour of more digestible and clickable articles, which might earn them more traffic and thereby money. Local democracy reporters are largely kept protected and isolated from such metrics. At a time of great uncertainty, growing division and increasing distrust, the IPI’s report argued local media is “central in the battle against misinformation and disinformation by fact-checking, deep reporting and debunking disinformation/misinformation. Local media understand well they are working in polluted news environment and use trust and truth to compete with ‘fake news.’”

Meanwhile, it is not a model that can be transplanted into every country. The countries which have embraced it have very strong, securely-funded and well-integrated public media, or a landscape which recognises the importance of strong local media as a cornerstone to a healthy local democracy. Evidently, this cannot be said for all countries which have a public media organisation.

While some might argue that public media are monopolising local news, the reality could not be further from the case. What each country or broadcaster which has committed to a local democracy reporting service has recognised, is the importance of a healthy media landscape. That means one which is pluralistic, one where journalists are given time and space to report, and one where such reporting is seen by as many people as possible. The BBC and other public media should not, and does not want to be, the only organisation holding local authorities accountable. This project shows the BBC is not ignorant of this. Rather, it is looking to relieve some of the pressure on local media, to the democratic benefit to the communities and organisations which are served by it.