Brighton and Hove News has won funding for a community news reporter to help extend the website’s grassroots coverage.
The local news website is one of 14 publishers to join the Community News Project (CNP) as the scheme expands with £6 million funding from Meta (formerly Facebook).
The money is being used to create 18 extra community reporter roles across the country.
The project started in 2019 as a partnership between the NCTJ, Meta and nine regional news publishers with the aim of supporting quality local journalism and improving the diversity of Britain’s newsrooms.
The significant funding boost, which will create up to 100 community reporter roles in total, enables more publishers to join the project and take on journalists to report on underserved communities.
The new publishers were chosen in a tendering process, with applicants asked to show how a community news reporter would engage a currently underserved community or place.
The publishers will also offer support and training through the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ).
All recruits receive NCTJ training to achieve a professional qualification, either the Diploma in Journalism or the National Qualification in Journalism (NQJ) depending on experience.
Brighton and Hove News will recruit a community news reporter to give more of a voice to people with disabilities, people from minority ethnic and religious organisations and communities, and people in seven under-served areas with higher levels of deprivation.
Sarah Brown, Meta’s head of local news partnerships in Northern Europe, said: “At the heart of the CNP is a goal to surface real life stories from under-represented groups from our first ever Welsh language title in Aberystwyth to the African and South American communities in London.
“We look forward to working with the NCTJ and our publishing partners in onboarding a new cohort of trainees who will share stories and viewpoints that don’t often get told.”
Joanne Butcher, chief executive of the NCTJ, said: “This brilliant project continues to be a success story for the industry thanks to Meta’s ongoing investment and the support of the publishers involved in the scheme.
“It already had diversity at its core with more than 60 per cent of the reporters coming from under-represented backgrounds to report on 80 previously underserved communities.
“With a welcome increase in funding and 23 wide-ranging news media partners now covering 100 communities, we have an even more diverse range of publishers involved in the scheme who are as committed as we are to the sustainability of quality, trusted local news journalism.
“We had the challenge of making sure the funding goes where it will be effective so it had to be a rigorous tender process, which involved some tough decisions.
“Those who were successful put forward the best proposals for recruiting, training and qualifying people who will benefit their communities.”
Joanne Butcher chaired an independent panel of judges which considered applications for 31 community reporter positions.
Brighton and Hove News said: “We are delighted to become part of this project and to have the chance to recruit a trainee reporter to share more community news stories that might otherwise not be told.”
