Best practices for better public interest provision in local communities

Drawing into focus the important role of local media for safe and stable communities, here we share key findings, capacity-development tools and case studies from Local Media for Democracy, an EU programme supporting 42 grantees in 17 countries.

Oct. 2024
Analysis

Local media are an integral part of peaceful societies. They inform the public on matters relevant to their local communities, provide information that empowers people to participate in democracy and strive to exclude biased or inaccurate information. But with high levels of media capture and manipulation by corporate and government actors, challenges such as threats to journalists and media, state laws targeting freedom of expression and disinformation destabilising communities, local news is in a fragile state within EU countries.

The Local Media for Democracy (LM4D) programme was designed to revive the EU’s local media landscape through measures that would build resilience, independence, and sustainability. It set out to improve the capacity of local media in terms of innovation, business strategies and audience engagement, underpinned by extensive research on news deserts in Europe, direct funding to local, regional and community media in the EU 27 member states and capacity building for the grantees.

We learned what works for local media and their vital importance in upholding a healthy media ecosystem. Here we share relevant lessons learned for funders, the media development community, policy makers and media practitioners. This report helps spotlight local media’s unique ability to provide perspectives from the ground and cater to otherwise underserved audiences.

In this report we:

– unfold 10 practical examples and five detailed case studies of media initiatives to overcome news deserts from 10 EU countries.
– share best practices and inspiration for local media on how they can take action in short time frames.
– set out the practical capacity-development tools designed by our expert advisers.
– share programming methodology.
– offer our recommendations on continued long-term support for local media in Europe.

Dr Clare Cook, Head of Journalism and Media Viability, said: “While there is far from a one-size-fits-all solution on how to bring impact in local contexts, we have explored with an open mind how to drive changes and improvements in the provision of public interest media in local communities. The level of experimentation – and what can be achieved in small windows of time when the financial and capacity development support go hand in hand – is down to the continued commitment of those media organisations working on the ground.”

As a result of the LM4D programme, 20 new local and hyper-local websites, microsites and thematic projects were created, and six legacy local media modernised and upgraded their websites in news deserts across Europe. Participants diversified their genres and formats by successfully launching enewsletters, podcasts and videos. Three local mobile apps were developed in less than six months.

LM4D’s community-centric approach emphasised the need to understand and engage with audiences. Half of the LM4D partners organised public events such as focus groups, town hall discussions, debates, pop-up newsrooms, open-editorial meetings and workshops on media literacy and citizen journalism.

At least 15 partners conducted journalism training sessions for their teams or community members, 13 media piloted new or increased existing revenue streams, 10 developed strategic documents, practical guides, media-kits and other license and knowledge products and seven media automated their editorial and management processes, helping towards improved efficiency.

This report is primarily aimed at two target groups: those working in the media development sector and media practitioners. It details the LM4D’s design, implementation and results, and highlights its capacity-development tools. It also includes selected project case studies with the emphasis on their impact on news deserts by launching new media products, expanding access to content, engaging with audiences and building communities, enhancing user experience and automating editorial work. The report offers key findings and recommendations for future programming of this kind.

As part of the LM4D consortium and programme, IMS was responsible for designing and delivering capacity building for the grantees. It consisted of needs assessments and mentorship, thematic webinars tailored to partners’ needs, knowledge exchanges among the partners, and measuring projects’ impact.

IMS designed an easy-to-use impact tool for the grantees to track and measure impact from the beginning to the end of their projects. We also created and shared a guide to audience research relevant to newsrooms operating in EU contexts.

LM4D awarded almost €1.2 million and provided capacity-building programme to 42 grantees from 17 countries, including 28 grantees in Central and Eastern Europe. Each grantee implemented a project over the period of six to seven months. The supported media and non-profit organisations were of various sizes, forms and experiences. They included traditional local newspapers, radio stations, cutting-edge digital outlets and startups, news websites, niche and investigative journalism media outlets, professional newsrooms as well as less experienced teams of journalists and community media activists.

Local Media for Democracy was an 18-month pilot programme co-funded by the European Union and implemented by a consortium that included the European Federation of Journalists, Centre of Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF), IMS and Journalismfund Europe. The programme ran from February 2023 to July 2024.