Bay Life is to launch a promotional set of features on behalf of the Aqua Bar in Pevensey Bay, which will include material online and in print, in our broadsheet newspaper, The Journal —Bay Life, 15 April 2017
The features will see the Aqua Bar with their own eventboard on Bay Life online, which will give background information, as well as a weekly guide to all the events at the popular public house, restaurant and venue.
The approach to eventboard promotion online now sees Bay Life providing this service live weekly to three major public houses in the locality, including the Royal Oak and Castle Inn in Pevensey, as well as the Castle Inn in Pevensey Bay.
The Aqua Bar is also to feature in Bay Life The Journal, our monthly broadsheet newspaper which is widely available across the locality to browse, enjoys an emerging readership, and is on sale in local newsagents, as well as being available as a full digital download on the day of publication.
The newspaper as a digital subscription enjoys a subscription base for people that holiday in Pevensey Bay from as far afield as Brighton, London and Cumbria.
Bay Life the Journal is the first broadsheet newspaper for any network of villages in Sussex.
‘Something special in the Water, The Aqua Bar ethos”, is to be a key business feature in the forthcoming issue of the Journal.
We will be taking a look at the new plans to make the Aqua Bar social hub at the heart of some of the key creative activities in the Bay, including an art exhibition by a local art group and in June a photographic exhibition. “Something special in the Water, the Aqua Bar ethos” will run alongside usual live music, quizzes, bingo and a bid to put on, as owners described to Bay Life today (15 April) ” other events that people will enjoy”.
Over the last two months Bay Life as been joined by some of the strongest new businesses and best established venues in the locality including Taylor Dain, the new estate agents in Westham. The company has chosen, Westham Village Voice, the new broadsheet that launches in Westham next month, as one of their promotional partners.,
Simon Montgomery, editor of the Bay Life stable of publications online and in print, who has been a teacher for 41 years and is soon to begin a small lecturing opportunity at Cardiff University with the Centre for Community Journalism, a new nationally funded body, gave the view today that “it is no surprise to see that businesses are discovering the potential value of the hyperlocal press”.
Talking about the emerging role of the hyperlocal press in the country he said :”there is nothing new or original about the hyperlocal press here in this network of villages in Sussex, it is happening all over the country hyperlocal newspapers are planned from Bristol to Benbecula in the Western Isles of Scotland.
“In the States already 32% of people get their news from social media and the figure, whilst not clear in this country yet, is certainly increasing.
“There is a critical gap. The national press as a result is under huge threat. The sales of all national newspapers are spiralling down and the regional press simply does not know which way to turn, simultaneously trying to appeal as a regional provider of news, but with community content generated as what can only be called token element. They are falling between two stools and know it.
“What the hyperlocal press is beginning to do is make a direct connection to and from local people. This principle applies to news, and in particular to features and campaigns, which the regional press will not touch because they do not see the questions as being vital to a wide audience, particularly with running campaigns, but which of course are vital to a hyperlocal audience because they have the potential to radically alter how specific villages can survive.
“My view is that the hyperlocal press is working not in spite of the web and social media but because of social media. In that sense it is some kind of complement, as news emerges on local social media, the hyperlocal press is already picking up local social media comment for example, featuring that community comment embedded in articles.
“It is about an audience directly connecting at a hyperlocal level, whether it is in print or online, directly connecting and directly commenting on what for local people at the village level becomes a newspaper that in some way belongs to them and their locality.
“We can see the effect best on regional newspaper websites, which are inputting national news alongside local news in an attempt to pump up breaking news conetnt, peppered with advertising pop ups that make their infrastructures in some cases, almost unusable. including national news does not make them better, it makes them worse
“Pevensey Bay LIfe is both a sustainable economic model and already a voice for important hyperlocal campaigns.
“It is not surprising either to see local businesses turning to the hyperlocal press up and down the country because of course they have much more in common with the localities that they serve and much more say in how their promotions and services will be profiled online and in print.Therefore they have a much more direct connection with their local audience.
“People have loved their newspapers for over three hundred years, by working as a complement to local social media, they are nor dying, they are simply recasting themselves.
“It is no surprise too that this growth in the newspaper industry is coming from below rather than from above with large companies. Things start at ground level.
“The owners of these newspapers are not controlled by big companies, that makes a fundamental difference of some description”.
At the Centre for Community Journalism, Matt Abbott the Communications and Project Officer, identifies that there are now 400+ hyperkocals in the country. He explains it this way. “Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism (C4CJ) researches into this area of journalism and offers networking, information and training for hyperlocal and community journalists.
“We want to do what we can to help shape the future of local news – a future that retains a spirit of idealism while addressing practical realities”.
The Aqua Bar eventboard on the Bay life web platform launches on Saturday 22 April.
We would like to thank the Aqua Bar for their interest.
Working in partnership with the Aqua Bar to develop their profile “Something special in the Water, The Aqua Bar ethos”, is a very small part of this big new jigsaw, but we would like to believe that the value of the profile at a hyperlocal level can add a new element in the promotion of their services and events both online and in print.
