South West Durham News (SWDN) ran the second of its free community reporting workshops last weekend and was delighted that the majority of attendees at its inaugural session the previous weekend returned for more.
In the second workshop, hosted by Sarah Hartley, founder of The Northern Eco and a journalist with over 30 years’ experience at titles such as the Guardian, Manchester Evening News, Northern Echo, as well as Google, discussed fake news and how to identify it, the pros and cons of AI, fact checking for investigative journalism, creative writing for features and reviews and how to construct a press release.
All attendees received a certificate of attendance to add to their resumé portfolio.
SWDN managing editor, Archie MacKay said: “We are delighted to report that feedback from attendees was exclusively positive.
“The number of interested readers motivated to get involved in community reporting has demonstrated a community need and we are very keen to develop these workshops into a longer, more intensive six-week course, which will also be free of charge.
“We want to expand our team of community reporters so that we are able to provide an ever more rich and varied content to our readers.
“It’s important to us that we celebrate the good in our communities, but also that we help address matters of concern and become a vehicle to facilitate campaigns when the need arises.
“We are also delighted that many in attendance are keen to get on with researching and writing stories and we hope that many of those will be published in our papers and online in the new year.”
As a community interest organisation, SWDN doesn’t have shareholders and relies on local advertising for revenue with any profits going back into the business.
The next step will be to seek funding to support running the next tranche of free-of-charge sessions for volunteers.
SWDN welcomes anyone wishing to become involved as a community reporter to get in touch. No previous experience in journalism is required.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to collect names to add to our waiting list. Click here or email sarah[@]swd[.]news to express your interest.
South West Durham News covering news across County Durham.
One Northern Echo reporter told me investigative journalism does not exist. I scoffed!