The Scottish Beacon: a collaborative future for local news - Rhiannon Davies

This talk will explore the current state of local news in Scotland; the decline in traditional providers, and the monopolisation by corporations. It will discuss the value and need for local news in the contemporary - and evolving - digital climate.

Despite the multiple challenges facing the industry, there are still shoots of hope with community-based, independently owned local news publications who are values-driven and put people over profit to deliver public interest news that matters. The Scottish Beacon is a newly established collaborative of 22 of these publications based all over Scotland. It exists to strengthen the sector and amplify the stories from Scotland’s communities, to hold power to account.

As well as introducing the collaborative, the talk will explore the evolution of local news in the USA, where concerns over polarisation and threats to democracy have led to renewed interest in funding local news. This has enabled innovators to push the boundaries of what journalism is, developing a new form of “civic media”, which is far more participatory and puts a community’s information needs first.

Rhiannon Davies, who launched The Scottish Beacon, is also the founder of the multi-award winning magazine, Greater Govanhill and cofounder of the Community Newsroom in Glasgow.

The meeting will be chaired by Cathy Crawford.

Please note that this is an online only meeting via Zoom. Once you RSVP, you will be provided with the link to the meeting. Just click on this link when it is time to join the meeting. You can also join the meeting using a Zoom account and the following details:
Meeting ID: 744 950 4423
Passcode: Humanists

We are arranging a "Humanist Pub Night" in the back room of The Kenilworth on Wednesday 6 March from 7pm onwards to allow people to meet together informally and discuss this topic. See separate Meetup for full details.