Kate Griffin freelance journalism and editing

East Oxford’s most famous event will be taking place in a different location this year.  The Cowley Road Carnival, Oxford’s largest community-led outdoor event, will be held in South Park and renamed “Carnival in the Park”.

The move is happening because the event’s organisers are not confident of securing enough funding to close Cowley Road and turn it into a car-free space for the day. Closing the road incurs significant costs because of the need to re-route buses and ensure the safety of the thousands of attendees.

Staffing is one of the biggest headaches for many community newspapers. While even the most understaffed regionals usually have somebody in the building during normal office hours and somebody to take messages over the phone, community newspapers don’t have that luxury. The usual scenario is to have just one or two part-time members of staff.

Freelance journalists often talk about the feast or famine work cycle. (When I say “talk”, I mean “complain”, of course.) I’d like to find a better metaphor, though, one that conveys the reality of the experience. The word “feast” conveys leisurely eating, but the feast periods in my freelancing life are all about the opposite: frantic production as opposed to relaxed consumption.