“Champion newspapers” and the stories waiting to be told

Dear supporters,

Let me begin by welcoming the 50 or so of you who have signed up since my last e-mail! If you obsessively check the counter on our website, something I definitely don’t do, the tally now stands at 231. We’re so close to halfway now – just 20 pledges away from the orange chunk being bigger than the white chunk.

It's been really lovely to get e-mails from people about why they've signed up. Some are journalists who have been working in the area and are excited to see something new, others just really care about local news. If you'd like to get in touch, please send me an e-mail.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped spread the word. We don’t yet have boots on the ground, because we can’t hire a team until we know it’s a goer. That means we totally depend on you, the locals who can see what we’re trying to do and want to support it.

If you’re looking for something to share… we’ve got a new video out! It features Tom Forth, whose company The Data City is based in Leeds. I’ve been aware of Forth for a bit, but wanted to have a sit down with him to talk as we try to launch. His company is an example of what seems to be happening in Leeds, where lots of new companies are getting going and the signs of growth are visible in the new offices and flats popping up.

A city undergoing these changes is a fascinating place to be. It gains a new cast of characters: the founders and hustlers looking to get in on the action, the clean money and the dirty. It gains new questions too: who is riding the wave and who is being left behind? How far are the benefits spreading out? It’s no less interesting a time to be around than a century, or even two centuries, ago.

But there is a difference. “In the industrial revolution, every big city in the north had a local champion newspaper”, Forth told me. “It was part of both promoting the city globally, but also challenging the city and helping it to be better.”

Back then, West Yorkshire hummed with the whirr of printers. Hundreds of journalists staked out cities and towns at all hours to get the biggest stories. As the area transformed beyond all recognition, they were right there to chronicle it.

What’s happened since isn’t unique to here at all. Right across the country, and indeed much of the world, local titles have shrunk, as the business models that underpinned them have disintegrated. The classified ads (jobs, houses, cars) that used to be the mainstay of revenues have been absorbed by the big aggregators (LinkedIn, RightMove, AutoTrader). The alternative, of course, is to get readers to pay, but the mindset that news-must-be-free has proven very hard to break out of.

It’s a huge problem, and there’s no quick fix. But what we’ve seen elsewhere is that by really going in-depth to tell stories, you can still persuade people to pay a bit for news.

So what stories do readers want us to go deep into? Lots of ideas have been coming in. If I had to pick one word to summarise, that word would undoubtedly be: transport.

If I had a tenner for every time someone mentioned the Leeds tram to me, I could have built it myself by now. I’m really keen to get into the topic. I’ve written a fair bit about Sheffield’s tram system, which I would describe as half a tram network, serving some areas well and others not at all. In Leeds, why has the idea come and gone so many times, and will this time be different?

Next, Leeds Bradford airport. Plans for expansion and night flights have clearly met a lot of resistance. Would more flights genuinely create growth, or just make it easier for local holidaymakers to get away? Then there’s buses – the Mayor, Tracy Brabin, is strongly in favour of taking control of them. That’s meant to happen next year – what should she do once she’s in charge?

Then there are the questions about specific places. How much has Bradford benefited from its year as City of Culture? Why is Wakefield council buying a local shopping centre, and is that a good idea? Is Headingley getting too pricey for students, and are they cruelly being denied the opportunity to live in damp Victorian terraces?

I could go on. My point is that there huge questions to answer where an in-depth approach is needed. That will be our mission. You can tell us about other stories by using our whatsapp – just click below.

To start telling those stories properly, we need to get to 500 subscribers. Please watch and share our new video – there are some links here to various social networks.

 https://x.com/LeedsMillMedia/status/2025982842832838862

https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGzPtHiBi_/?hl=en

I like the idea of being a “champion newspaper”, both celebrating and challenging. Thanks again for getting on board with our slightly crazy plan to set one up. Together we can launch it.