BBC Local News Partnerships

843 newsrooms within 90 news organizations in the U.K. sharing local content

The Local News Partnership is an effort unprecedented in scale to ensure coverage of local and regional government. The effort, underpinned by support from the BBC functions much like a wire service for more than 800 newsrooms, having shared more than 35,000 stories to date and adding between 1,000–1,500 stories each month.

The project includes multiple efforts like the Local Democracy Reporting Service which hires and trains journalists to specifically cover government. The 128 reporters hired so far are hired by and based in local newsrooms, but paid for by the BBC. The BBC also managed News Hub which provides BBC video and audio to the local partners.

“This level of coverage has never been undertaken by any news agency,” — Matthew Barraclough, BBC.

The BBC Local News Partnership is an example of news organizations recognizing that diminished capacity takes precedence over competition and coming together to keep doing the work that needs to be done.

If this project interests you, other collaborative projects to check out: CoastAlaska, Northwest News Network, California Dream