What are the lessons for local news reporters learned during the pandemic, and what is pink slime news‪?‬ Journalism during the pandemic, challenges and innovation, and dangers

This podcast, made in conjunction with Pod Academy, interviews leading academics on how local journalists and journalism has coped during the pandemic.  Can a new type of hyper-local journalism be the answer for local news and local democracy? And how will it be funded? It is clearly a time of chance and challenge for local news around the world as it struggles to cope with covering the pandemic – the rising levels of violence, anti-mask actions, and violent attack.  But there are signs of optimism with the rapid growth in readers on-line for news sites and a new trend, the news newsletter.

It includes interviews with Damian Radcliffe, a professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, Michael Sassi, a honorary professor at Nottingham Trent University and a former editor of the daily newspaper the Nottingham Post, and Kate Heathman, a senior lecturer in journalism at Liverpool John Moores University.

Themes: the future of local journalism, threats to local journalism, anti-mask protests, the rise of the news newsletter, and how police forces are headhunting senior journalists to be their spokespeople, and why this might be a worry.