Kate Griffin freelance journalism and editing

The first ever Regional Magazines Summit takes place in London on October 3rd. It has been organised by the PPA as part of a new strategy of looking at regional glossies as a sector in their own right.

I can’t write about heavy-handed police tactics without mentioning recent events in Kent. The Kingsnorth Climate Camp is a perfect example of why the right to photograph in public places is important: because otherwise actions like those shown here would go unrecorded and unreported.

Photographer: "I know the law!"
PCSO: "Yeah, good for you!"

This video [1] raises many of the contradictions in the state attitude towards filming: CCTV is OK but human photographers are a problem; cameraphone footage is helpful evidence but filming in a public place is suspicious behaviour.

Northcliffe Media is going all local. Or, as the annual report and accounts for 2007 puts it, “[i]t has been revitalised as an integrated provider of local media services”. The company, part of the Daily Mail group, intends to expand its "online network of ultra local news [...] to over 120 community portals" by the end of the year.

Community journalism is a relatively new and rapidly changing area, so I don't feel confident in coming up with a catch-all definition of what makes a community newspaper. On the other hand, I do want readers of this blog to know what I'm talking about, so it might be helpful if I list some of the characteristics that most community newspapers have in common.

A community newspaper...