The Bureau Local: Holding power to account
The Bureau Local is a not-for-profit network of journalists and tech experts who work together to find and tell stories that matter to local communities.
A man is tripped, a whistle blows, a finger points, a penalty is given...
Viewed from a national perspective, it’s a meaningless incident in a game of football. But for people living in the local communities of Galicia in northern Spain, knowing the outcome of this relegation battle isn’t just desirable – it’s hugely important.
“Although solutions are available to identify content for major national and global stories, they don’t work well for journalists covering small and hyperlocal communities,” explains Tomás García Morán, Project Director. “We wanted to explore how new technology could help us deliver a more relevant local news service.”
We wanted to explore how new technology could help us deliver a more relevant local news service.
Tomás García Morán
Project director at La Voz de Galicia
“Hyperlocal Listener and Community Manager are software solutions that sit on the smartphones of our reporters.
Hyperlocal Listener drills down into social media and other communications channels, keeping us in touch with what local people are reading and posting about. Community Manager then enables us to publish the stories we create from that information in the most appropriate media mix – whether that’s in our newspaper, on our website or through general or specialist social media groups. So those of our 11 million unique users who want to know the details about a particular football match, or any other local news items, get the stories they really need, delivered via their favourite channels.”
The team at La Voz de Galicia aim to roll out the project to journalists in regional newsrooms this summer.
(...they missed the penalty, by the way.)
Telling local stories
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DNI Fund Report 2018
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