While many of the local and regional newspapers out there are run by one or two larger publishers, there are several local news outlets that are going it alone and building up a loyal and dedicated following. Dorothy Stein, co-founder and editor of Salamander News, Darryl Chamberlain, founder and editor of the Greenwich Wire and David Floyd, managing director of Social Spider, all spoke at a recent Indie News Week event about the challenges and opportunities there are for independent outlets in 2025 and beyond.

Current state of local news

The current situation for local news is a precarious one. Digital intermediaries such as Google and Meta are now getting a lot of the advertising money that local newspapers used to get, denying them a crucial revenue stream.

A lot of local newspapers are now also under the ownership of either Newsquest or Reach plc. Tom Sanderson, deputy director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism, said:

‘Due to these companies having to reduce costs, jobs have been cut and this has ended up with lots of communities being reported on by journalists who don’t live in that community or rarely visit it.’

This has in turn led to another problem where communities are left without any local news outlet reporting on the area, creating ‘news deserts’. The Public Interest News Foundation found in 2024 that 38 local authority districts were news deserts, which equates to around 4.7 million people or 7% of the UK population. As Tom shared, this could lead to distrust: 

‘When you lose local reporters who are actually part of the communities that they report on, you start to lose context, and you start to lose nuance, and you ultimately lose understanding, and people start to not trust the information they see about the places and the people around them.’

Focusing on issues that matter

Despite all of this, there are still opportunities for independent local outlets to succeed. Darryl Chamberlain relaunched his Greenwich Wire website in 2023 and last year had nearly 600,000 unique visitors. This is due to the fact the website focuses on public interest news such as council matters, transport, and housing. The aim going forward is to get ‘more civic pride coverage’ as this seems to resonate with readers.

Salamander News, ran by Dorothy Stein, has adopted a similar approach covering public interest news with a focus more on environmental issues. It has also looked to tell the stories of more marginalised groups, ‘empowering communities to tell their own stories’. Dorothy also explained that they operate as a reader’s co-op, meaning that the readers ‘help shape the strategy of the type of news that’s covered’.

New models and the need for collaboration

Both the Greenwich Wire and Salamander News are free to read and rely on reader donations as one of their main forms of revenue. David Floyd, managing director of Social Spider, which produces six titles including four print newspapers and two online publications, believes that the ‘local journalism market has failed’. Neither the old model, of print newspapers relying on print advertising, or the new models, looking more for online advertising, are working.

David relies on a mix of revenue sources for his papers. The print editions that go out do still get around 50 or 60% of their income from print advertising. This is then mixed in with some money from Google Showcase (on the basis that they provide three news stories a day to the platform), a small amount from online advertising, some money from the BBC local democracy reporter scheme (as they have three LDR’s working for them) and then about 20% coming in from reader donations. David said:

‘There is a lot of scope for improvement with relatively small amounts of investment. There’s an onus on key stakeholders in terms of local government to get involved, but the positive is that even if politicians continue to fail to deliver then there is a lot that people can do on the ground by donating money’.

These new models of multiple revenue streams will be important for independent outlets going forward, but so will the sharing of information. David, Dorothy, and Darryl all agreed that collaboration between outlets was needed, whether that be sending stories to each other or sharing more general advice. David also highlighted that he had a successful collaborative bid with Social Streets in Tower Hamlets to get another local democracy reporter and cover council news in that area.