Every so often we hear from readers, ‘XYZ publication has an exact copy of one of your articles, why’s that?’
Generally, it will be because they’ve seen one of the articles written by the Isle of Wight’s Local Democracy Reporter (LDR).
Local Democracy Reporting Service
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is an initiative which launched in March 2018 and is funded by the BBC.
The scheme pays journalists to be employed by local independent news outlets, and it’s their job to cover all aspects of news relating to local democracy: reporting from council meetings, the NHS, and any other areas relating to local democracy.
Local contract
The contract for the Isle of Wight area is currently held by the County Press. They are paid a sum of money by the BBC each year and with that they employ a journalist to write articles for the LDRS.
Louise Hill has been the LDR since September 2019. News OnTheWight has published more than 1,500 articles by Louise, as well as articles by the Portsmouth, Southampton and Hampshire LDRs when appropriate.
Articles posted to a ‘pool’
Articles that the Local Democracy Reporter writes are posted to a ‘pool’. All articles posted to the ‘pool’ should be proof-read and the content should adhere to a code of conduct.
Publications who are part of the scheme, such as News OnTheWight, are then able to publish those articles, taken in good faith that the content is accurate and proof-read by other staff members at the County Press.
So if you have seen articles across several Isle of Wight news publications that are exactly the same, it’s highly likely that you’ve just read the latest LDRS article.
Unedited press releases
Another possibility of seeing duplicate news is because News OnTheWight also runs press releases from the council, police, NHS etc unedited.
However unlike other publications, News OnTheWight never takes the byline for someone else’s words, which is why you’ll see bylines for “IW Council Press Office”, “Isle of Wight NHS Trust”, “Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary”, as well as individuals from organisations such as Matt White (Mountbatten), Gavin Foster (Island Roads and others), Peta Rainford (Independent Arts), etc.
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Image: nathan dumlao under CC BY 2.0
