Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Here at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, we are developing the Centre for Community Journalism, a unique fusion of research and practice committed to developing a strong network of hyperlocal and community journalism in Wales.

Ranked as a world-leading School and a pioneer in journalism education, our aim is to build on this new hyperlocal form of digital journalism and help create new, sustainable models of local news. Our focus will be at the local level, the place where journalism is most valued – but most at risk.

As a centre of excellence in both training and research, our commitment, in this endeavour, is simply to promote good journalism. We hope others will work with us to make local journalism in Wales a success story that will inspire the rest of the UK and beyond.

The Centre is being established to address a number of key issues facing local journalism in the UK:

• The rise of the internet which has hit traditional business models of print journalism hard
• Readership and advertising revenues have been in steady decline
• Journalists are being laid off in an effort to cut costs and in some areas newspapers have disappeared
• The erosion of trust in journalism due to issues raised at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards

This is felt most acutely at the local level, where there are no economies of scale and smaller profit margins. In a country like Wales, with its high penetration of London-based news, this creates the potential for a serious democratic deficit.

At Cardiff, we are acutely aware of these issues, but we retain a belief in the value of good journalism. We also want to do what we can to help shape the future of news - a future that retains this spirit of idealism while addressing practical realities.