Today the news is ubiquitous. We are handed free newspapers as we board the morning train to work. World events are played for us on plasma screens on the inside of public buses. If the Inuits have forty words for 'snow', we ought to have double that for 'news': It's everywhere.
To place all news under one umbrella term is not entirely helpful; war reporting and celebrity gossip end up positioned awkwardly within the same category. However, despite the enormous differences that exist between these polar examples, both are news worthy, and both are followed with great interest. What is it then that makes the news so important, such a huge part of daily life? For me it is simple; we watch the news because we care.
Often the news focuses on things that happen far away, or at a very large scale, and this can give events an unreal quality. Such are the number of actors involved and the amount of context required to follow a story that it becomes difficult to form any sustained opinion on an issue. What factors are at work here? For what reasons are people doing this? Who is in the right? The coverage of the war in Afghanistan is an example of news that I have struggled to form a clear view of, such is the sheer amount of information and opinion that surrounds it. At the opposite end of the news scale, you have local news. The local papers that I receive are certainly relevant to my home area and I can therefore easily relate with the content, but I find that they too possess an unreal feel. In contrast to stories of battle overseas that I cannot relate to because I have never experienced such things, the local news seems to depict a world that is far quainter and trivial than the one I experience daily. Life is certainly not all cub scouts and garden restoration projects. I think it is very important to note that the actors, emotions, and principles in the local news will be much the same as they are at an international level; they are universal.
It is for this reason that The Local Matters will report on the issues and events that occur at a local scale. The reporting will not be colloquial or trivial because the matters are not trivial, in fact because of their topical nature they are the most pressing issues of the day. Although with an original focus on London, because that is where we are based, the Local Matters will seek to investigate and report stories from across the rest of the UK and perhaps also abroad. This may seem contradictory to our views held on the importance of local news, but we are not reporting news that is geographically close, we are reporting it on a local level. The idea is to get a look into a story from so close that you can tell exactly what is going on, and just how things got that way. Think more like studying a photograph closely as opposed to surveying a map.
The term 'glocalisation' is relevant to this project. Through the processes of globalisation the whole world seemingly grew smaller and more connected, and as a result the news became more international; a very large problem thousands of miles away became more news worthy than a problem at home. Glocalisation however, sees a resurgence in the importance of the 'local', partly facilitated by the communications systems that the network society has created. The actions of a local activist group can be seen across the world. One very small splash can cause a lot of ripples. Furthermore, because the events we report are at a relatively small scale, you can have an influence on them. At the end of each story the relevant contacts of the protagonists involved will be provided. If you want to have your say on the matter, just get in contact and speak out.
We'll report the local news because it's important. Because it's rarely given the attention and respect it deserves. Because the motives and principles that drive local issues are no different to those that drive international ones; you just see them more clearly close up. We 'll report the local news because you can have a say in changing it. Each day our lives are experienced on a local level, and with the speed of information transfer and amount of news coverage that exists in today's society now, more than ever before...
The Local Matters.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
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