💭 Sweet Dreams

Jaldeep Katwala debriefs on PINF's third annual Independent News Forum 2024, this time in sunny Glasgow.

The Public Interest News Foundation brings together fifty independent news providers once a year through the Indie News Forum. PINF will officially be turning five next month, but the Forum is now in its third year. First there was Leeds, then Bristol. This year, we all gathered in Glasgow.

Kicking off on Friday morning, The Community Newsroom, home to both Greater Govanhill magazine and investigative journalism outfit The Ferret, was packed with twenty indie news providers keen to see how the space works. Our host, Rhiannon Davies, even took a small group on a walking tour around Govanhill to show how embedded the magazine is within the community.

It's the little things about Forums like this that both surprise and delight. The Forum proper kicked off with registration in the Annie Lennox Building at Glasgow Caledonian University, where our indie news providers turned up an hour early to network with each other. Completely unplanned by us, they just knew they had found their tribe and they were keen to talk, listen and share.

This year, we tweaked the format so that we had half a day on Friday, a social event in the evening and then half a day on Saturday, giving people plenty of time to get to Glasgow from South Devon, Shetland and several points in-between.

We wanted indie news providers to take away important, valuable information. The BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service is tendering 118 contracts this year and Jason Gibbins, who’s in charge of the scheme, gave first-hand information about the process. The hope in the sector is that indie news providers will win a larger share of the contracts this time round.

One of PINF’s Local News Commissioners, Neil McInroy, updated us on their work and the thinking behind the recommendations they’ll make in the New Year. Ofcom has been reviewing the local news market and two of its senior leaders, Stephanie Brook and Ali-Abbas Ali came to outline their interim findings on local media.

We also heard from philanthropist David Graham, who’s putting £100,000 of his own money into the Tenacious Journalist awards to spark original journalism that makes a difference. It’s early days yet, but we’re encouraged by the range and diversity of the ideas submitted so far! The closing date is the end of October.

That evening PINF formally said goodbye to our Head of Advocacy, Hani Barghouthi and welcomed our new Campaign and Communications Manager, Beckie Shuker. Old friends, bookends!

The real hard work at the Indie News Forum came when we opened the agenda the next day to the participants. They discussed questions like: how can indie news ‘safeguard’ ourselves from being obliged to use platforms that don’t reflect our ethos, such as X & TikTok? How do we encourage people to value journalism? How do we make it pay? How can we raise core funding? How do we stay sane as solo operators?

For PINF, these Open Space sessions are invaluable. We have access to the wisdom of the crowd and we get a sense of what the sector thinks our priorities should be for the year ahead. In distilling these 15 sessions, we came away with takeaways in capacity building, advocacy and research. 

Setting up a time-bank where indie news providers could demand and supply effort to support each other was an idea raised to support the sector. We have a long list of potential skill share sessions and we’ll be gauging demand for Zoom sessions on topics like succession planning, community centred journalism and building and balancing revenue streams. 

Potential research projects include measuring the impact and value of indie news and a deep dive into what drives sustainability. Indie news providers told us they wanted a PINF badge they could use on their websites and in their publications. They wanted us to share a template for Freedom of Information requests to local authorities on public notice advertising. The sector wants PINF to keep on lobbying with philanthropists and other stakeholders to make the case for independent news.

One final act before the group photograph at the end of the Forum. The projector screen covered a portrait of the former Rector of Glasgow University, whose black shoes were just visible most of the Forum. A button was flipped for the big reveal as the music played. Can you work out who it is? Glasgow Indie News Forum 2024, sweet dreams are indeed made of this.

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