Dear readers — back when The Dispatch ‘team’ was just me and my laptop, I had one clear mission in mind. Build a quality local news title befitting quality local people.
Because, frankly, I was fed up with Birmingham being constantly overlooked in the national conversation. Three million of us live in the West Midlands, but it seemed we were barely being talked about. Not to be a walking cliche, but compared to Manchester, we get much less coverage in the national news. There’s so much happening here, some of it with major implications for the country, yet there was barely a whisper about it.
It was clear to me that our local media needs to be bigger and stronger to provide the coverage, scrutiny and celebration of local life that we deserve. Because, boy, has local journalism taken a hit in recent years. My biggest bugbear is the London-based media conglomerates like Reach Plc who bought up famous old local news brands as a means to clock up billions of page views per year to sell ads. When corporate strategy runs the show rather than quality local reporting, standards plummet. Fast.
For a long time, a visit to their websites was migraine-inducing. Click on an article and you’d be faced with text dancing around the screen and off-putting pop-up videos. When you did manage to fight your way through, the articles were often vapid click-bait of no local interest.
Let me be clear – this isn’t a jab at the journalists themselves. Back in 2022 I worked for the Reach-owned Birmingham Live as a Local Democracy Reporter. By nature of that role, I was somewhat insulated from the worst of the churnalism, but the ridiculous demands made of my colleagues were obvious. Some young writers were expected to publish more than ten stories in a working day, giving them less than half an hour to research, write and publish each article.
The pressure to produce traffic all but eclipsed the important responsibility of providing quality, well-researched, thorough reporting about the issues that are actually affecting us here in Birmingham. Now, Reach has changed its strategy. Low and behold, original reporting is the dish of the day. But it's too late - the brand has already been damaged beyond repair.
Here at The Dispatch, we believe local news should be about what’s going on in Birmingham, so we can be better informed and more connected to where we live.
Rather than optimise for clicks and views to fund what we do, our members allow us to produce well-researched, in-depth reports that get under the skin of what it means to live and work in Birmingham right now.
Our Monday Briefing gives you the low-down of what you need to know at the start of every week. We lift the lid on what’s actually happening in local politics, and dig into Brummie history that you might not know. Plus, we love to shine a light on all the great things to do (and eat!) in Brum.
Our next step is to do more for Birmingham. You voted on what you think we should prioritise beyond our journalism, and here’s what came out on top.
From creating opportunities for young people and tackling misinformation in schools, to assigning a reporter to cover local elections and producing a regular good news edition, we’re properly committed to making local news work harder for Birmingham.
Truth is, delivering on these pledges will require a big step up in time and resources across our team. That’s why we’re launching our biggest ever campaign to welcome 1,000 of you as paying members in just 33 days.
So, if you think that local news should do more for Birmingham, then help us take this next step and join our members today.
Becoming a member not only helps support local, independent journalism. You’ll be able to access everything we do without a paywall, including our entire archive, and get 50% off tickets for our growing schedule of events.
And to help make the journey from reader to member even more of a no-brainer, you can save over £40 on an annual subscription or get over 50% off your first two months while the campaign is live.
Our members are the reason we’re free from the editorial steer of suits in the capital and can commit to doing more for our city. We’ll share more about the pledges over the coming weeks, but for now, I hope to welcome you as a member today.
Take care,
Kate
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