A new wave of citizen journalists for Preston
Preston FM will be part of the NESTA Neighbourhood Challenge, working with UCLAN, CSV and Blog Preston to develop citizen journalism.
The project has been selected from over 600 applications to be one of 16 projects in England working with NESTA to create innovative responses to local priorities, particularly in neighbourhoods with low levels of social capital.
Preston FM will work with the Bespoke Project at UCLAN, CSV’s VolTV operation in Preston and hyper-local news site Blog Preston to recruit and train citizen journalists in Deepdale, Ribbleton and St Matthews over the next year. A series of innovative community-based activities will run in tandem with the citizen journalism work, assisting local people to take action on issues uncovered by journalists.
It’s about recognising that communities are made up of people talking to one another. It’s about finding out what a community already has and what it still needs before exploring how to supply it. The people best placed to do this are the communities themselves.
Led by Your Prescap, the partners aim to provide communities with the toolsets, support and facilities to create their own content and set their own news agendas. Community produced radio and TV, descriptions from blogs, comments, reactions and websites will help neighbourhoods to find out about issues pertinent to them and to find out what local social groups are up to.
The output produced will be an important source of news and information about the three neighbourhoods, but will also evolve into forms of media that translate into campaigning public journalism, connecting people from diverse backgrounds with shared interests to resolve an issue or to collaborate on improving their lot.
