Slightly OT, but really good to see London Centric on the front page of HN. Britain's local media has basically collapsed in recent years - it's now owned by three conglomerates (Reach, Gannett/Newsquest, National World) who are completely uninterested in any form of journalism, only in the sort of clickbait that would have embarrassed even Buzzfeed in its 2012 pomp.
The London Evening Standard was one of the last remnants of even slightly decent local writing, and that too has now been shut down in favour of a weekly lifestyle paper called "The Standard". But there's a small number of indie publishers who are trying to fill the gap: the Manchester Mill and Liverpool Post, Bristol Cable, Oxford Clarion, and so on. London Centric is an attempt by an ex-Guardian writer to do the same for London and I hope it succeeds.
Hey, Jim here, author of that article and long term HN reader. Never dreamed of seeing one of my pieces on the homepage!
Anyway, I’ve kinda bet the farm on making proper London coverage work, so every subscriber makes a massive difference. So please do give it a go, send any London tips you want investigating (my personal WhatsApp is on the site), and if you hate it… well please tell me why on the way out of the door.
I just looked around your website and damn, I wish it was around when I was in London. Congratulations on putting that together, it’s a bold move. I’m not in London anymore so I can’t really justify a subscription, but I hope you’ll be successful.
We loved to take the piss but the Evening Standard at least existed and London deserves much more quality local journalism.
Are people really no longer interested in what happens locally?
I would pay for local news, even about places that I no longer live, but used to live and still have a passing interest in. But perhaps I would want to receive it as XML feed.
Even events (concerts, readings, exhibitions, screenings etc.) are typically scattered across many smaller lists or mailing lists, depending on location. For example, there is way more going on in London than what is listed by Time Out:
https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/london-events-in...
Local communities may have their own sites or still rely on paper flyers.
Some facts of communal interest are published in government outlets that are still mandatated in some jurisdictions.
It would be wonderful if more of "what's going on" could be made available in curated digital form, for us to use and enjoy, and also to preserve it for future generations so that they can see what was happening in our age.
Agreed and interesting and good to see it has > 1k paying subs (out of 7k total) after a little more than a month - probably as a result of some great stories already. A promising start.
The London Evening Standard was one of the last remnants of even slightly decent local writing, and that too has now been shut down in favour of a weekly lifestyle paper called "The Standard". But there's a small number of indie publishers who are trying to fill the gap: the Manchester Mill and Liverpool Post, Bristol Cable, Oxford Clarion, and so on. London Centric is an attempt by an ex-Guardian writer to do the same for London and I hope it succeeds.