Spearheaded by the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF), this month’s Indie News Week campaign aims to show how fundamental local news is to a healthy democratic society.
Local news encourages people to take part in the democratic process. It fosters a sense of community, allows an exchange of ideas and it creates pride of place.
And news isn’t just about society’s problems or philandering politicians either. From sports coverage to business openings, a weekly what’s on guide or writing about everyday heroes awards, publishers of local news champion the great and good on their pages too.
For us, Indie News Week is a chance for us to share the importance of ‘good news’ to make good things happen.
Since the launch of The Bedford Clanger in 2011, our raison d’être has always been to highlight the very best of Bedford – the cultural highlights, the creative community, the history and heritage, the indie shops and the people making great things happen.
Talking up the town
Talking up the town attracts like-minded, positive people.
It attracts investment and creates a domino effect – more good things happen. Collaboration instead of competition, ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.
The launch of the Bedford Independent in 2018, and the formation of a more structured publishing business, Progress Publishing, meant we could now also report on the more ‘serious side’ of news with balance.
But since we created our ‘good news’ filter earlier this year, we calculate that around a third of our published stories fall into this category.
Tell us your good news on Sunday, 9 June
On Sunday, 9 June (the same day as this month’s Bedford Flea) the team from The Bedford Clanger and Bedford Independent will be in Silver Square highlighting the importance of professional and regulated local news, as well as collecting your good news stories.
We want to hear about everything from sporting successes to finding your new favourite business, a friend who’s faced adversity to someone who’s raised buckets of cash for charity, or an amazing play that you want to let everyone know about to a young Bedfordian who’s making waves in a hobby or school subject.
We’ll have a pin-board to create a ‘wall of fame’, so come and find us next to the Silver Faces so we can share our good news yours. Some may even be published on our pages.
During the week we’ll also be encouraging our readers to support us to keep delivering good news and more in Bedford.
Ways you can support us
- Sign up to our daily email: the days of a daily paper delivered to your door may be gone, but you can still have your daily dose of news delivered directly to your inbox every day at 6am. No need to even get out of bed, just open your eyes, open your emails and there it is.
- Make a donation: If you like what we do, then we would love it if you could make a regular or one-off donation to support our work. All of us work part-time, so imagine what we could achieve with more resources.
- Take part in our survey: It only takes a few minutes and it’ll help us shape the way that we deliver local news to you. You can even be entered into a prize draw to win £50!
- Tell your friends: Our titles have around 130,000 monthly readers, but we would love to be able to reach more people. Give a friend a copy of the Clanger, share our Bedford Independent links on your street’s WhatsApp group, and help an older neighbour sign up for our daily email.
Indie News Week – let’s get the good news rolling!
