hello. to tell the story of the uk more fairly and more equitably there needs to be more reporting voices outside london. that seems to be the journalistic mood of the moment. the bbc in march announced plans to shift focus from the capital and i quote, "in a commitment to better reflect represent and serve all parts of the country." when gb news launched it, promising voices from every

part of the country, and to again quote, "reach out to nonmetropolitan audiences beyond london and engagement in our national conversation", well, the impact of covid and movements like extinction rebellion or black lives matter, those stories are better told if everyone has an equal stake in them, irrespective of where they live. so what does it mean to have a non—london bias when you are reporting the news? the market for producing local news is as tough as it's ever been. so, how do you do it? today we hear from four people about their new approaches to reporting across the uk. let me introduce them to you. lorna willis is in norwich and has been ceo of the regional and local news publisher archant since march. nick mitchell is in edinburgh and he is editor of the new website nationalworld a news site by regional reporters. he is involved in a series of new city website and has previously from the scotsman.

ifan morganjones in bangor and in 2017 founded nation.com an english language news site in wales. shazia ali is a journalist leading a new initiative for the people's newsroom in swansea promoting diverse community led journalism. by way of introduction to each of you, perhaps a story that's currently at the top of your respective news agendas delivered in a short and pithy way. lorna willis, what is top of your agenda in norwichjust now? 0k. top of our agenda in norwich would be the nhs in crisis, the nhs at the brink. we have three hospitals really struggling in terms of waiting list at the moment, waiting list i think pre—covid we had 93 people waiting a year for nonessential operations. that's now gone up to 12,008. so we've got three hospitals on the brink, as we would say.

nick mitchell at nationalworld, what are you concentrating on? our top story at the moment is actually about the vagrancy act which is a very old piece of legislation which has been found thousands of people are still being prosecuted under this piece of legislation which the housing secretary actually said six months ago should be abolished. there is some data which has been surfaced today. and something a little bit lighter we've also got the york shire bank c. we got a video report with a street artist making a bit of a name for himself so there's a couple of things for us. ifan morganjones, for you what is top of the agenda? well, that the welsh - governments introducing devices, ozone cleaning devices to clean classrooms in wales i and that has attracted - lots of comments, not just from welsh media but. from uk media as well. shazia, i know you're newsroom is still very

much in the making, but what are you concentrating on despite that? well i'm excited to explore how the migrants have access to the vaccine. we've seen nhs england information about how people don't need an proof of address or an id to register at gps yet they are still barriers and we need that information to get the people that need it. we need journalist from that of those communities to advocate that. ok, that's a flavour of my four as of the stories we're looking at there. lorna, tell us a little bit about argent. the titles in the regions that you cover. archant, we've been around for about a years. we have around 50 newspaper titles which for daily titles, we cover east anglia, the southwest, temperature and a few local titles in london. and if there is

a london—centric view in the media world, how much damage do you say that does to what you are trying to do and indeed to the coverage of the uk as effectively as it could be done? i think it does the damage is slightly stronger top in terms of national coverage, national coverage is important, to bring stories to the agenda. what's missing is that local voice. i mentioned the nhs as one of our lead stories, we talked about the nhs over the last 18 months. when we talk about the nhs we are talking our friends, families, our neighbours. we're talking about 12,000 people that will be impacted that we know. so we talk about a story in a local newspaper i think a wonderful quote we had from a rear recently was actually the reason they like new local news is because we learned two or three things we didn't know about the community and how the national agenda is in impacting us. but we also see two or three faces that we do know. so it brings it to life. and i think more than that it allows people to have that voice.

i think damage is too far. i think the challenges of whether local communities feel that the being heard. because on your website you talk very much about building communities. and you would argue that regional prints, online journalism plays a big part in that. absolutely. i think particularly on a local level. we talked earlier about the bbc making a commitment particularly to local news was that i think that's really a challenge in terms of, you look at bbc's impartiality, clause, it's very difficult for them to do what we do locally. 0urjob is to campaign for these local communities and fight for them. i don't believe you can do that with impartiality. an example of that is again talking about local hospitals, we have a hospital in king's lynn where the

roof is falling down. it's being held up by over 200 polls. we are campaigning to save that hospital in a way that the bbc will never be able to bring that to life on that national agenda. so while those national stories impact us, ourjob is to really translate those on a local level and allow those local communities to have a voice and for us to campaign forthem. nick, tell us a bit more about national world. this is a company that bought outjpi media at the end of last year. again, a little bit like lorna, give us a sense of the titles that are currently in your portfolio. obviously, jpi media is a historic regional| publisher and was bought over by national poc— at the time of year. there are approximately 150 newspaper titles - across the uk that we operate. ranging from the scotsman to the yorkshire post, - a real range of regional, national and local titles. i think the interesting thing| with what we done this year since march is try to take . a new approach with digital first, only publications.

so national world was the first of those to l launch in late march. we are now five months in, just over five months - and are getting to the stage j now where we are launching new city brands across some| of the major cities in the uk. so yeah, there is a lot- of competition in the regional media but i think it's an exciting time. - and we are trying to do things a little bit differently. - i want to talk more about those city brands in a moment. but with the launch of nationalworld .com. my understanding of that is that it's a national news site but the contributors are regional reporters. so how does that change the flavour of what you're telling people? it's interesting one. i think we are unique i in the sense that we are a national news brand but we are based - right across the uk. so i'm in edinburgh, i we have editors in the midlands, york shire, . right across the country. so it's not really the sense that we covered regional. stories, we do pick up on regional stories. i we cover the national news

agenda but i think we do it| in a slightly different way. we are not in london, | we are not in that kind of bubble in london. i think the fact that we are a part of the jpi network. as well gives us a bit more of a sense of what's - going on across the country and the issues that people i really care about. so we have a really strong data and investigations team - which recently shortlisted, i think that something - we can use effectively when we are looking i at regional inequality. one of the key things for us | is trying to expose examples of the funding inequalities whether it's the arts, - whether it's arts, - issues with leveling up. we see constant rhetoric of level two leveling - up at the moment. so we really want to try and get behind l the rhetoric on that line. i was struck again by your website challenging institutions cocooned in the wealth and grandeur of the capital political and cultural and including that media that dictate to the other parts of the nation. that's a pretty strong charge. yeah, we are nothing

if not bold. _ i think that is a really - confident approach to take. and it's something i that comes across in the content that we produce. the stories that we highlight and like i say, i think- the investigative side - of things is really key to us. as i say, data journalism i is something that is a really effective tool for us just to expose the facts - behind what some of- the politicians are saying. ifan morganjones, with yours nation. cumbria set up in 2017, again it was there a frustration of london centricity in your mind when this was devised? i don't think it was frustration there was just an awareness that in wales we have had since 1999 our own national parliament, we had national parliament set up a 1999 but the media in wales remained relatively weak.

the media in wales is always been weak for historical reasons of course. the relatively poor population in wales means that there's not much of a base from attracting advertising and that has an impact on the strength of the commercial media in particular. and there was a feeling in that i think there bbc in 2014 and discovered that half the population did not know at that time that the health service in wales was devolved to wales. but that's obviously changed now with the coronavirus pandemic but at the time that struck us in particular as being a democratic deficit. and then an under informed public in wales that we decided to set up this news website in order to bring perhaps welsh politics in a more accessible way. interesting, nick mentioned the pandemic, there pandemic from the point of view of what you're doing i'm guessing is that because the uk as a whole got much more of a sense of the devolved powers of certainly scotland

and northern ireland and wales because each country was looking after its own health care up to a point. and we saw for example mark drakeford on national television much more than we would have normally. did that make a difference to the way people were responding to what you are putting in front of them? it was certainly an explosion of interest in coverage about the time of the start of the coronavirus pandemic. it went up to about 2—over a million a month at this moment. i think that's been a direct impact of the coronavirus pandemic also i don't think anyone will say that the pandemic has been a positive thing but i think that certainly won silver lining that is come out of it has been the fact that there's been much more interest in regional news was a particularly in nationa

at a local level. shazi ali, how much do the sentiments that you've heard from the other guests tap into some of the things that you're looking to do? there is something slightly different, the people's newsroom was started by the bureau of investigative journalism. that was an initiative to support the sustainability of community journalism. one of which i am running on behalf of east wales. they are the ethnic minority youth and support team. they support all different ethnic communities with up here in swansea and across wales was up so the idea behind our newsroom is to tell our own stories, it's a newsroom bill for and by ethnic minority communities. and it's us shaping the narrative and respect us. i want to talk to a little bit later on about what's driving that. if you look back to your own consumption of the media in the past you would say it doesn't feel as if it's told your story is much as it should have done. and it's your chance to change that. exactly that. lorna, our chat was bought by an equity firm last summer. and now you're looking to turn the business around. but you faced hard times for that.

we did. i think it's been tough for all regional newspaper businesses. the language that we hear around regional press beginning crisis is somewhere at the mark. i think that archant had been on a good trajectory for the last two or three years in terms of the level of innovation that we've employed for that we've been hit and we've been struggling with a very heavy pension deficit. but beyond that pension deficit i think the level of innovation that this business has been showing. the .net two years ago we started working very closely with pure gold and actually on one hand there's always a pressure of pension deficit suddenly would happen we started working with google, we had some money in the bank to invest and be given the space to innovate. as a result of the project,

we built the most advanced voice infrastructure in terms of uk media. and were excited to be launching that over the next 18 months. so to say hard times. actually we had drill covid, everybody said their story to tell it has been horrendous for everyone in the businesses we look after. but actually, no, outside of the industry people look in and think wow, it's off inside the industry. we are incredibly limited. we work with a huge amount of talent every day. challenging but extremely exciting. but some jobs did go didn't pay? absolutely. we reach staffed business inevitably. impose covid we've reshot business. one of the things was keeping journalist and that's what we done. and the older, more established newspaper titles and you have many and you're stable, how much do they still matter when people are finding so many

other sources of news? especially younger people. that's a great question. if i spoke to my knees who is 18 she would tell me that news didn't matter to her at all. if i spoke to my parents or if i speak to my colleagues are people my age they will tell me it's absolutely critical. so to various parts of our community the newspaper and our brands are absolutely critical. remember, we still have areas that have terribly challenged broadband service. the only way in which over it in particular the people felt connected was through the printed newspaper. it's incredibly important to our community is in readily important to our businesses and we are committed to keep delivering that service. next, you mentioned your city websites. it is up three flavour of those yes, we launched four recently. manchester, liverpool- old world and liveable world. and tomorrow we've got london world on live. i

although we've been discussing... - you're allowed to do laundry work, are you? were moving into the territory. —— london. that's tomorrow by birmingham and further down the line. - it's been busy time for us. and the financing of those, how does that work was met we've created new roles. we created 45 new roles. the commercial side . is obviously something we are developing just now. i think the longer—term - strategy around that is really trying to look at strategic| partnerships in our cities. really trying to make some connections with partners, i blue—chip partners within those cities — and move away slightly from the problematic. advertising market and be more aligned on things like video, - really high quality content. the more relevant i. would say commercial. so you're constantly having to innovate and rethink when it comes to where the monies, from. innovation is really vibrant within regional media. -

i think would be wrong - to assume that it's any less so than at the nationals. and we are constantly trying to innovate whether it's - podcast, video, all of those things come storytelling, . interactive content. it's a full range for us. ifan for you, how does that work? we were setting up the media business from scratch was to set up a not—for—profit campaign _ so that's any of it we did make went straight back into the company itself. we are actually subscriber driven service. so we get 20,000 a year from the welsh council which is been a great help. but the bulk of our funding actually comes from people who want to see our business succeed _ and believe that wales needs eight national news network and so far we've got over 1000 subscribers every month supporting us at the moment.

right. so if you keep a good and keep it relevant in their eyes your hope is that they will continue to put their hands in their pockets? if you get 50,000 people that's giving you £2 a month suddenly you've got enough to employ a whole stable ofjournalist. i think it's been an unmet need in wales for eight national news service. and will fill clear that no one has filled that gap in the pack. now we've seen that gap in the market and people are ready to support us. shazi ali, take us to your project and the driving force behind her. i hinted at this a moment ago, the way you consumed media when you were growing up was at a source of frustration sometimes because you didn't think you were able to access some of the stories that you felt you should be able to read? definitely. just to conceptualize it. the people's newsroom does have a particular focus to serve people that were marginalised outside the media. and i got some experience in that photo of course i'm welsh but i also have

south asian background, muslim background and growing up i did feel that where i existed and were unrepresented. sometimes the distortion and i know and i understand. yeah i did feel that was damaging for myself and damaging for my community. even now if you like that damage is very obvious and still continuing. and that's why i studied journalism and why i became —— swansea. i focus on the stories and a lot of the feedback we had was that we wouldn't often see the stories on tv that we wouldn't see stories that we felt were important for us. that made us feel heard, they gave us a sense of validation. how will the people's newsroom as a concept continue the work you just describe? i think, it's ultimately a response to what our community said they want, media ownership, they want to tell their own stories, they want to control the narrative in a way that tells our stories authentically and respected and a way

that we feel valued. and it's a direct response to all of the spirit that we talk about we feel. and what stage are you at at the moment? we are in the project design phase at the moment. we are finding out how our audience consume news, where they want to consume news. an attic it's all about market research and that deep needs mapping, that so important. that's how we draw sustainability. and where does it go well there you are in swansea and you described the project to us. where else could go if it works? this is a pilot project here in swansea with east wales. and we know that the barrel planning to scale this work and replicate that across the uk and support people to create their own local newsrooms next year. again, we will rely on funding from those who read it, consume it, believe in a? perhaps. i know that our research now we are just trying to explore how that will work just respond to people's needs. i know that our business model

will be a direct response to our audiences needs. ifan, i wanted to go back to you with your academic hat on for a moment. we talk so far about london and regionaljournalism and how it's developing in so many different ways. how well placed does it then look to you to hold power to account? because that is clearly a key element ofjournalism where ever it is in the country should be doing. i think that one of— the important things we can do is decentralise at journalism. we've heard leveling up i already being mentioned. we need to level up - the journalism in different parts of the uk as well is tell the stories and represents i the needs of people - in different parts of the uk. i think that is what it does i and what some of the other services discussed here today does as welt _

nick mitchell, you were nodding at that. the regional element of holding power to account, obviously an important factor for you too. yes, i think he makes a very good point about leveling up the medias industry as well is wider society. i think that something that's kind of slightly about the media there's a sense that you have to go to london to make it. and hopefully projects like this, like natural world and the other projects discussed today showed that we are opening up opportunities across the country for more background and notjust people looking forward to spend some time in london to get internships really trying to open it up across the uk. opening up as well forjob opportunities wherever you are in the uk. absolutely. you've probably seen that recently across the regional industry. somebody vacancies just now and a lot of movement. i think it's really healthy, it's a healthy reflection

of the fact that companies are building a lot bolder now. as publishers and as we move out of the pandemic and it does create new opportunities. i think one of the things that we've launched this week is a new apprentice program. it's early days but we are really looking forward to bringing in new people to full industry training for the people from backgrounds that again may not be as well represented as in the past was up i think there's a lot more opportunities and it's not perfect but were getting there. lorna, you mentioned your relationship with google a little bit earlier on. to some social media might be seen as a potential rival, a problem for some of the work that you are doing. but you don't see it that way. no, the first thing is to differentiate. when we talk about search engines and social media platforms. we talk about google i think lots of people talk about the argument, google and facebook is kinda eating our lunch in terms of advertising.

that argument is a decade old now. i think is an industry we need to pick ourselves up and get past that. the reason we are around google as they came to the table before this got noisy. and they came to us and facebook, instagram, snapchat, they don't engage with us on regional level. google it come to our business, they got to know our business at a micro level. and i asked to enact they asked how they can help. they didn't come in and say you're doing it wrong. and i suspect nick may sympathise with this, there is a little bit of arrogance that comes from outside this industry looks in and says well, they'rejust not good at doing a good job. and actually were doing a blood he excellentjob. what google did was give us the space debris. they said ok you got an amazing talent in this business, your ego, or some cash, go innovate. and go get sustainable. does that provide you with a sustainable financial platform to build on? it will do.

so were going through the experiment but yes that's the absolute plan. it will be in terms of reader sites along with other initiatives around working with our businesses. 0kay. time is up but thank you all very much indeed for taking part. thank you to all of my guest. nick mitchell, editor of national world .com. ifan morganjones, warner willis ceo of archant and shazi ali leader of the people's newsroom initiative in swansea. thank you to all of you. the media show back at the same time next week. well, the warm southerly winds have arrived and a dose of summer heat is on the way. but it's not going

to last very long. yes, a very warm and sunny tuesday on the way, but from wednesday onwards, late on wednesday, we could have thunderstorms in the southwest of the uk brought by this area of low pressure. but for the time being, high pressure over us, notjust over the uk but much of europe. and here's that warm air coming in from the south, spreading across the uk. so the early hours looks pretty quiet across much of the country. there will be some mist and fog forming, maybe northern wales, merseyside, lancashire. and mild, if not quite warm, 15—17 celsius around dawn. and the temperatures will quickly skyrocket as we go through the morning and into the afternoon. now, it's going to be sunshine pretty much all around, although across some far northwestern parts of the country, it could be a little hazy and cloudy. much cooler in stornoway, 18 celsius, but the mid—20s for the lowlands of scotland, 27 for yorkshire, 30 possible in the midlands. and if we do get 30,

which we are very likely to get 30, it will be the hottest day since 23july, after a relatively cool august, because the temperatures never really got that high during august — a little unusual. so this is what it looks like on wednesday, the weather map. you can see a low pressure approaching us, weather fronts here too. these are showers and thunderstorms reaching southwestern parts of england and also wales, some showers getting into northern ireland too, but the rest of the country is still basking in that summer sunshine — temperatures just shy of 30 celsius, i think, on wednesday. i mean, they could reach 30 once again, but look at that, plymouth there, cornwall and devon, only around 19 celsius. and then wednesday night into thursday, those showers spread across the country. there could be some showers and thunderstorms almost anywhere, really. and on thursday itself, you can see it's much fresher across the uk. some of that warmth is still left around lincolnshire and east anglia,

but the vast majority of us are back into the low 20s. so here's the summary and the outlook. you can see that whether going downhill as we go through the second half of the week. and the weekend? the weather's set fair. modest temperatures, around the low 20s. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughanjones. our top stories... the taliban say they are now in control of the panjshir valley — the last province to fall to them. the resistance says it will fight on. women have been taking to the streets in afghanistan in a rare protest to demand rights under taliban: chanting "we are not afraid, we are united." relatives of 298 people killed when flight mh—17 was shot down over eastern ukraine seven years ago give harrowing testimony to a court in the netherlands. with just eight weeks to go until the next crucial climate summit — we look at the challenges on the agenda. and the actor, michael k williams — who starred in the american crime drama, the wire —