From community connection to AI innovation: 5 Local Day takeaways

By Damian Radcliffe

The narrative that local news is in crisis is a familiar one, often told through the well-worn story of shuttered newsrooms and shrinking budgets. But a recent gathering of European media leaders at WAN-IFRA's inaugural Local Daypainted a different picture; one of resilience, reinvention, and - dare I say it - optimism about the future.

Discussions highlighted an industry looking to do more than just survive; it's actively seeking to reassert its relevance by actively building authentic community relationships at the same time as strategically embracing technological change.

The sold-out event, which drew participants primarily from across the Nordics alongside attendees from other parts of Europe, the UK, and the USA, centered on three interconnected themes: AI, community, and change.

Here are five lessons from the event that highlight transferable lessons for local and non-local publishers, and newsrooms, everywhere.

1- Transparency can drive trust and subscriptions

Linda Eriksson Storbackakicked off the day with a compelling turnaround story, one that showcased how her paper had gone from being at risk of closure to becoming one of the fastest-growing properties under Bonnier Local's aegis.

Serving just 3,576 readers in an area with a population of 25,000, Eriksson admitted this wasn't initially a role that she considered for herself.

"To be honest with you, I didn't want this job," Eriksson admitted, recalling her choice between taking the Editor in Chief position or becoming a reporter 100 kilometers away.

However, despite this reluctance, Eriksson took on the role, as she and her team have subsequently transformed Södra Dalarnes Tidning's fortunes.

Fundamental to this is taking a community-focused approach. First, they created a four-point checklist for stories and focused on covering crime, housing, business, and human interest stories. These are the topics that resonate most with their readers. The results were striking, hitting 45% engagement among logged-in users and 55% of the target group in six months.

However, the real breakthrough came in 2023 when they started to add some major investigative journalism to their portfolio. This content sat behind their paywall but was supplemented by a freely available Investigation Diary (Gravdagboken), where reporters published their notes and progress. "Readers could follow our attempts to find out the truth," Eriksson said.

By being transparent about their reporting processes, the paper was able to tap into the power of the community. Eriksson recounted how two readers showed up at the newsroom with a plastic bag containing the documents the reporters had been struggling to obtain. Others brought cookies and buns to the newsroom to encourage the team to keep digging.

The newspaper went on to win multiple awards and, in March, was named Sweden's newspaper of the year. But "the finest prize we won was the trust of our audience," Eriksson said.

2- Visibility matters. Say goodbye to air-conditioned journalism

Richard Prest, Head of Strategic Delivery (Local) at DC Thomson in Scotland, echoed the importance of direct community engagement, offering an insight into how to do this in person and the dividends this can yield.

"Building that direct relationship has been crucial in many ways," Prest said, describing how the approach implemented by the Press and Journalin North Scotland was like going "back to the future" and embracing practices from print's golden age. The most important part of this involved ensuring that reporters get out of the office.

As part of this approach, the team went on the road, hosting events in five cities. This enabled audiences to share the issues that matter to them, as well as quiz reporters about how they work, and the mechanics of story selection and 21st-century reporting. In turn, Prest divulged, these responses are now shaping coverage plans for 2026.

These in-person efforts have been complemented by hosted online Q&As on Facebook, inspiring people to comment on the publication's stories for the first time. It's a strategy that can then help to drive registrations as the audience begins to feel more engaged with the paper.

"This type of work doesn't have a short-term impact on metrics," Prest acknowledged. But he was clear about its value. "We are not a noticeboard, [we] have to make sure stories have impact." This type of work, he said, "can be time-consuming and challenging," but it also helps to build credibility. Afterall, Orest suggested, "nothing beats journalists actually meeting the public and explaining what they are trying to do and listening to people."

3- Journalism as a civic circle

Building on these ideas, Joanna Krawczyk, Director of CORRECTIV.Europe, shared her view of journalism as a "civic circle, not just a one-way type of reporting." "Do it with people, not just for them," she stressed.

These principles are embodied in CORRECTIV, Germany's biggest non-profit media house with over 200 staff, and a business and editorial model rooted in community-centered journalism. A key goal of their work, Krawczyk explained, is to ensure that Correctiv gives back stories, data, knowledge, and skills, to empower communities to be more active citizens and to hold power accountable.

As part of this, they have developed two key enabling tools: Crowdnewsroom, their own crowdsourcing tool that 85,000 people have used, and Correctiv.Lokal, a network of 2,000 local journalists and outlets across Germany.

More than 85,000 people have used Crowdnewsroom to share information and help power citizen-driven investigations. These citizen-driven investigations have "turned journalism into a civic process," Krawczyk said.

Moreover, when people see their own input reflected in reporting, it makes it easier to build trust and longer-standing relationships with audiences.

As a case in point, a significant portion of people who participated in CORRECTIV's investigations later donated to a crowdfunding campaign. This matters, because 75% of their annual €10 million budget comes from individual donations, indicating a clear financial link - and benefit - to this type of reader-supported investigative journalism.

4- AI's potential as a productivity multiplier

The afternoon sessions had a strong focus on practical AI applications, with Elin Stueland, former Head of Editorial AI at Schibsted's Norwegian daily Stavanger Aftenblad, sharing her newsroom's journey.

"One of our biggest fears was to be fooled," Stueland said about concerns around misinformation produced by Generative AI. In response, they deployed Hive, a verification product deployed as a Chrome add-on for everyone in breaking news positions to ascertain if photos are AI-generated.

Meanwhile, in a bid to make content more accessible and to drive engagement, they also rolled out text-to-speech using a cloned voice. "As a local newspaper, it was really important for us to sound local," Stueland said, particularly for place names.

"Nothing has changed our production like AI has," she added, comparing its impact to social media and smartphones. AI frees up time for tailored notifications, finding experts, and most importantly: "It gives more time for why I became a journalist," she said. Namely "meeting people."

For transcription, she described asking AI what's missing from interviews. "It's still mine, but AI helps me find the core of the story," she argued.

Henry Faure Walker, CEO of Newsquest, which operates 200 news brands with 800 journalists and the third-largest audience reach in the UK, shared how AI had helped to drive group-wide productivity gains.

After training 30-35 AI journalists (real people, not robots) across three cohorts, reporters using Newsquest's proprietary copywriting tool - which works with facts and notes from trusted sources such as local council press releases - have gone from producing four stories per day to as many as 30.

These tools are "a godsend," he said, resulting in "a transformational increase in productivity." Using AI in this way frees up other journalists to do high-impact, boots-on-the-ground work, Faure Walker observed, noting that use of AI tools is also going to be a KPI for Editors, alongside metrics for loyal users, print copy sales, page views, and digital subscriptions, reflecting the strategic importance attributed to AI by the group.

5- The importance of intentionality

A recurring theme centered on the strategies and purpose behind the initiatives being discussed. Communicating this is essential if newsroom leaders are to bring their colleagues and audiences with them on this journey.

As Cordula Schmitz, Editor-in-Chief of Germany's Hamburger Abendblatt, put it, if local news doesn't reform and reinvigorate itself, then it risks being akin to a "building where people couldn't find the entrance."

The publishers thriving today are those building trust through transparency, creating space for community participation, and deploying AI strategically to free journalists for the work that matters most: being present in and accountable to their communities.

To counter shifting algorithm changes and the use by audiences of AI snippets, building for direct engagement is key. Participants pointed to the need to stop doing certain types of content that aren't reaching audiences, alongside ensuring that the "human beings" in stories to ensure emotional resonance.

At the same time, said Mathias Høibakk Bergquistthe head of editorial AI and deputy director of editorial content development at Amedia, this also means "ensuring that you have unique enough content that is difficult to copy, and replace with AI services, and [to] build around what's unique for your brand."

As Markus Rask Jensen, director of News at Norwegian publisher Amedia, suggested, "We have to solve universal problems… What problems are you trying to solve? What will AI never solve?"

The answer, participants agreed, is unique editorial content that builds on a publication's biggest strengths: local connections, unique content, as well as expertise, knowledge, and relevance that permeates through a publication's output to inform people's lives.

Looking ahead

WAN-IFRA's Innovate Localprogram, which has documented 30 cases over 24 months covering audience development, local advertising, local storytelling, and reaching younger readers, continues with webinars every second Wednesday at 3 pm CET.

WAN-IFRA Members can also join a dedicated Slack channel, enabling them to interact with their peers in the local news arena to share successes and discuss shared challenges.

As WAN-IFRA's Local Day showed, this is a sector brimming with people and companies that are charting a new path for local journalism, one where the relationship with communities, connection, and technological innovation is more symbiotic than ever.

As Cecilia Campbell, a Swedish journalist with experience in the UK and USA and co-founder and program editor for Innovate Local, framed it at the start of the day, "This is about community and conversation," adding later, at the end of a lively panel discussion, that in essence, "it's all about listening."

About the author: Damian Radcliffeis the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at the University of Oregon. Since 2021 has been the lead author of WAN-IFRA's annual World Press Trends report. He is the author of numerous studies on local journalism in the U.K and USA, including two recent papers on Redefining News: A Manifesto for Community-Centered Journalismand Advancing Community-Centered Journalism, both of which were commissioned and published by the Agora Journalism Center.

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