Wordblog

Whenever I go to that part of the coast I try to pick up a copy of the Southwold Organ to remind myself that hyperlocal journalism is not new. The August issue leads with the primary school sandcastle competition, attended by the mayor who handed out the prizes.

Southwold (BBC Suffolk: Where I live) has a permanent population of 1,500 people and 1,250 properties of which 450 are either second homes or holiday lets. This month’s issue of the Organ is 40 A4 pages, of which half is advertising. It is published by a printing company in a nearby town.

It is given away and there is a web site (not all the content of the printed version but lots of pictures of fetes), also offering advertising, which claims 3,366 readers in July (86,196 hits). I have no idea about profitability of the Organ but it has been going sometime and has an editor who clearly attends the council meetings.

Southwold is one of those places that is dignified by a Town Council with a mayor, having been allowed to keep the ceremony and very limited power when local government was reorganised into larger units.

This month the Organ manages more than 4,000 words on meetings of the council which does not even have the power to approve a new fascia sign above the entrance to a local business.

Waveney District Council had turned down just such a proposal. The mayor described the decision as “totally bizarre”. One of the councilors had heard the decision had been taken by the conservation officer and they decided to write to him asking him to give his reasons. (Conservation officers in Waveney must be as unpopular as they are in Mid-Suffolk where I live: one told me that if I wanted modern conveniences, ie a decent bathroom, I should not have bought an old house.)

Small town life is documented in the council report. There were five thefts in the previous month. No make that four — a bike reported stolen was found pushed into some bushes. Unfortunately, there is no explanation of what was stolen from the WC on East Cliff.

Then there was concern that Suffolk County Council, two years after saying it was putting the money aside, had not repainted the railings. Dissatisfaction about the way the district council was maintaining the marshes is apparently a regular issue.

The meeting did agree to buy a third tricorn hat for civic occasions at a cost of £225 plus VAT, plus £6 postage.

The minutia of life is in the Organ. The winner of the July meeting of the Scrabble group was Sue Collingwood who gained bonus scores with RATTERS, FLICKERS, and CATERING.

And there is a celeb columnist, Michael Rowan-Robinson, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, who tells us that August 13 is the night to look for shooting stars. Having watched shooting stars in the black Spanish night I can recommend it. His guide is here.

I love reading the Organ but I suspect those behind it would be puzzled to learn “the audience is the media and newspapers are just the platform” as Andy Dickinson heads a thoughtful post on hyperlocal journalism. Maybe modern very local journalism is just going to have to start very small.