EXPLAINER: What Is A Local Democracy Reporter? We Interviewed One to Find Out...

Somerset Independents Investigates

 

It’s the “purest form” of journalism being a “window into the Council” but your work might get garbled, edited or completely misinterpreted - even by media organisations - a Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) tells us.
 

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Somerset Independents puts residents first. 

Residents have been asking "What is a Local Democracy Reporter?" when they see it in articles on the BBC website, SomersetLive (if they can get past the ads), Somerset County Gazette and other local media outlets. 

And they've been asking, "How can one person work for so many media outlets?".

To get some answers, Andrew Pope (pictured) interviewed a Local Democracy Reporter from a City in England, who we have agreed to keep anonymous to protect his position and his career as a journalist.

Andrew Pope
Leader of Somerset Independents

Why did you take the job as an LDR?

“I thought it’s the purest form of journalism, because you’re doing exactly what a journalist is supposed to be doing.”

What do you see as the role of an LDR?

“To be a window into the Council so that people in the City or the Council that you’re doing it for know exactly what is going on. The Council do issue press releases that go to the newspapers but those press releases are always what the Council is doing, they are not two-sided. They are one-sided.

It’s the Council celebrating themselves and that’s not democracy so your job is to get straight through that press release into the Council. You’re not part of the Council, you’re an independent person and so people know that you are on their side and they tell you what the Council is actually doing.”

Who gets to use your work and are they allowed to modify the articles?

“It is published on The Wire which is run by the BBC. I put everything as an LDR on there... only 1,000 different publications in the country can access it.”

“They can completely (modify the articles), that’s the thing.”

So they can take a completely different editorial attitude to what you’d written?

“Yes.”

And what can you do about that? How can you complain if they garble your work?

“You can’t do anything about that. They can do what they want with your work, as long as they do it professionally.”

 

 

Daniel Mumby
Local Democracy Reporter

 

Daniel Mumby (pictured above) is the Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) for most of Somerset, the part of Somerset that is covered by Somerset County Council and the four district councils that fall within the same boundary. He is hosted by Reach (SomersetLive), not the BBC.

Stephen Sumner used to be the LDR for North Somerset Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council. He left many weeks ago. 

Somerset Independents have confirmed with Reach, who employ all LDRs in the Somerset/Bath/Bristol Region, that the position remains vacant. 

The job ad is at the link here, although the ad had expired one month before the time of this article.

Adam Postans is the LDR for Bristol, also hosted by Reach.

Reach is a private media organisation (formerly Trinity Mirror). It receives public money from the BBC for the LDRs. It is one of three media organisations that dominate LDRs across the UK, as shown by our analysis here.

Somerset Independents approached Reach LDRs to ask them to report on our investigations into councillors who were in arrears on their council tax - in all parts of the county of Somerset and in Bristol.

No story whatsoever has been published by Reach using our investigation, although we did provide significant information to the Reach LDRs. They did not prioritise it.

We have complained to their editors, Pete Gavan and Stephen D'Albiac, as we believe this story is clearly of significant public interest.

We know that the public is interested, from the reactions that residents express. Residents are usually outraged and angry when we tell them that councillors did not pay up.

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