Participatory Journalism For The Pheripheries And Community Building

Over the next six months, a series of workshops called the Journalism Simulator will be held for a group of people interested in journalism. Under the guidance of professional journalists, they will get an insight into creating content for the news media, learn the principles of journalistic work and most importantly: try out the job in practice. Media training with a focus on disinformation will also be an integral part of the workshops. The outcome of the project is an increase in the number of regular contributors to the NB website, better coverage of events in the region as well as building of an active citizenship.
The second part of the project is community building, which aims to connect the NB website with cultural actors, organizers of sports and community events, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in order to create a lasting cooperation. This will increase the visibility of NB and its readership.

Target group

1. students and young people
2. senior citizens
3. cultural actors, organisers of community and sporting events
4. marginalised groups, e.g. the large Roma group in the region
5. the general public, including municipal and town authorities

Goals of the project

Although the Participatory Journalism project may seem educational at first glance, we also see it as a development project for our website. Now, the content of the site is created by one editor and a small number of irregular contributors (free of charge). So, the goal of the project is to cultivate a few regular contributors who will cover topics of their choice. We see students as an important target group, for whom the Journalism Simulator can be an inspiration for further studies and career paths. Equally important for us is the involvement of seniors and, finally, the often-neglected Roma minority. We don't know if this group will be able to participate in the long term, but we want to give them the opportunity and needed support. Together with the second part of the project, which is community building, we see an opportunity to increase - through richer content and connections with other partners - the readership of the Our Broumov Region website and its attractiveness for advertisers and other potential partners.

Implemented activities 

They held three Journalism Simulator workshops to expand the ranks of external contributors from the local community. They succeeded and expanded their ranks to 5-6 contributors. They set up an Instagram and the number of followers on Facebook increased by 900. They are also seeing more community involvement in the responses under articles. They have prepared a strategy for the development of the Our Broumov Region website, which includes new banner positions better suited to user habits. In the last six months, the number of users of the site has increased by 50 per cent and awareness of our news medium has increased. They have connected with new partners.

Impact addressing news deserts

During the six months of the project, they have managed to involve more representatives of the local town and local institutions, so that they could get better access to information and pass it on to the readers. They also perceived that a community of people has formed around the Our Broumov Region website, who follow them regularly and are used to receiving practical and other information from them about what is happening in the region. They have also found that the larger - regional - media have become accustomed to regularly drawing information from their website for their articles, even quoting them. They can see that their activities are gradually greening the local news desert and they are keen to continue and develop.