NEWS IS NEWS ON THE VALE

25-05-2009

Clive Edwards is the editor of Vale Mail - a very local heart in the global media. Here he writes candidly for The Stirrer about the challenges of local journalism.

‘Distraught Glenys in all night cat vigil’ is the low point so far of Castle Vale’s glorified blog which likes to pretend it’s a news website. What made me ever think that an absent cat and its ageing owner’s anguish could stir the emotions of 9,500 other Castle Vale residents still makes me shudder.

Of course, it’s the groping around for a story when none exists..... or rather, when you don’t know of any, that causes us to try to elevate the mundanity into crisis. I smiled a couple of weeks ago as I read an article on page two of the Sutton News that proclaimed: No Swine flu yet. I thought sadly of the journos in their office hoping that some poor local wretch would touch down at Birmingham International sweating and spluttering after his business trip to Mexico City.

Apart from the cheap blog, Vale Mail also exists as a newspaper – a community newspaper delivered free to all homes in Castle Vale once per month. In the global media world, it’s not even big enough to be described as a minnow. Plankton, more like. It’s existed since 2000, and relies largely on grant funding. The looming disappearance of said funding intensifies our efforts to get ads. Some success there, but not enough yet to feel safe.

Local evidence, anecdotal and statistical, indicates that Vale Mail serves a purpose, despite the occasional lapse into feline stories. Castle Vale’s horrible period of crime and degradation in the 70s and 80s is well documented – in fact many residents feel that the Sunday Mercury still documents it, using Vale as its easy metaphor for degeneration, as opposed to the regeneration that transformed the massive estate to such a degree that Governments and councils should be queuing up to say: “Look what we did here; money well used can change communities.”

The estate’s remarkable success stemmed originally from a massive financial input, but it is something more complex that ensures its continuing progress. Social infrastructures, community democracy, the feeling that local voices will be heard, that activists can make an impact... these are genuine in the Vale. Residents’ groups exist in virtually every block of the estate. And they wanted a newspaper to voice their view across their estate, and to flag up the good and the bad in the area. So we have school successes, and soccer cup finals next to petty vandalism and dreadful unemployment figures. Like any decent local newspaper, in miniature.

We try to keep production values high. The good guys from the Post and Mail used to set out the pages for a small fee. Then they subtly suggested it was time we did it for ourselves. So we do. Trinity Mirror still prints 5,500 copies for us at the going rate, each month with barely a smudge. And we like to think it looks pretty good, and is not chucked in the bin or the hedge quite as quickly as the Council’s ‘Forward’ newspaper.

We grandly stand up to any effort to bully us into taking sides. We may pay a price for that eventually, unless we crack this advertising problem. Finance issues in times like these can be all consuming.

We need to keep the cats from the door.

Clive Edwards is the editor of Vale Mail

Today's edition of The Stirrer edited by PragueTory - Dominic Fisher