Hastings Independent Press and The Magnum Photos Foundation partnered to deliver a free multimedia journalism training programme for 12 local young people, from backgrounds under-represented in the media, during the past three months. The group have worked with the HIP team and industry guests to create a special edition of the Hastings Independent Press newspaper and an exhibition, HYP – Hastings Youth Press, to represent their experience of life in Hastings and issues that are important to them through multimedia journalism and creative practice.

You can pick up your copy of the special issue with the next edition of the Hastings Independent Press, available from stockists from June 30. We invite you to celebrate the exhibition and enjoy a programme of talks from July 1 – July 9, with a special launch event at Stella Dore, 64 Norman Rd, Saint Leonards-on-sea TN38 0EJ, on July 1 6-8pm. More details to follow on our socials.

Partners and Supporters include: The Peter Marlow Foundation, Fujifilm UK, Eggtooth Hastings, Hastings Contemporary, Hastings Commons, Xtrax Young People’s Centre, The Refugee Buddy Project, Hastings Radio, and Stella Dore.

Funded by the East Sussex County Council Community Wellbeing Fund and our community through our crowdfunding campaign! Thank you!

Hastings’ young people and marginalised communities need your support with the Youth Multimedia Storytelling Programme Crowdfunder. We need to encourage more diverse and representative voices into the media – to tell their stories and share their perspectives of the world, and to get more equal access to employment. Hastings, along with many towns along the coast, has a specific and pressing need for help with employment – the media is just one part of that effort, but an important part.

Widening Access

As in many professions, the journalistic elite perpetuates itself. Wealthy families can afford a year or two of supporting their young person going through the maze of internships and networks and badly paid posts as they get their first foot in the media. That’s too big a bar for most families in the UK. Many in positions of privilege want their own children to get those opportunities, and ‘putting a quiet word in’ with contacts is also a crucial part of exclusion for others. Only 20% of journalists identify as being from a working-class background. In addition, 245 local newspapers closed in the UK in during the past 20 years, previously a route into national journalism. 

Photos from Young Syrian photographer Nour Alezou’s exhibition at The Nest during Refugee Week
CREDIT: Nour Alezou

The project would give younger people and those from marginalised communities in Hastings the chance to develop digital journalism skills – writing, researching, photography, video, interviewing, maintaining social media – crucial for anybody trying to get into the media at any level. Very few can now be a ‘print’ journalist only – they also need to be able to record and edit audio and video and ‘re-purpose’ their material for a range of outlets. Experience is crucial and building a track record of published pieces is essential for anyone attempting to start a career in a highly competitive (and shrinking) field. These skills and experiences are also transferable to other career paths such as the creative industry. 

Broadening Political Debate

Exclusion and a lack of diversity also help maintain a narrow political and cultural Overton window (the range of ‘acceptable’ opinion). The edges of that window are policed forcibly, and mainstream journalists can relax within the middle of it and pat themselves on the back for their ‘not this or that’ party approach – what Noam Chomsky called ‘a herd of independent minds’. The problem with that is that the ‘centre’ has shifted very far to the right in the last decade or two with the rise of right-wing populism and the conversion of formerly ‘left’ parties into neoliberal centre-right ‘alternatives’ (looking at Blair and Starmer). The fence that many journalists are pleased to be sitting on is, in fact, far to the political
right, and far removed from the experience of the majority.

CREDIT: Nour Alezou

We also need to up-skill a wider group of people as the ‘legacy media’, as they are sometimes called, are increasingly failing. Sales of newspapers are shrinking year on year – but remain influential – and the use of ‘fake news’ by newspapers has always been a huge issue for our democracy and the way the population is informed. The golden dawn promise of social media is well and truly over – algorithms are set to promote the extreme, to create division and encourage people to stick within their own silos. We need a new generation of budding journalists prepared to ‘speak truth to power’ and to develop new ways of working – in what we currently call social media and media, but which will undoubtedly become one seamless entity.

Creativity Works

We are really pleased to partner up with The Magnum Photos Foundation for this project. Ask a photographer and they will tell you that Magnum is a stellar name in photography, and Magnum has already piloted a project similar to this in London and Shannon Ghannam, Global Education Director, recently worked with the Refugee Buddy Project to mentor ​young Syrian photographer Nour Alezou whose exhibition was hosted at The Nest during Refugee Week celebrations. We will also have support from Fujifilm UK and The Newspaper Club, East Sussex Career Hub, Eggtooth Hastings, Hastings Contemporary, Xtrax Young People’s Centre and Hastings Radio. 

Shannon explains: “This project was inspired by a programme that Magnum has been part of for a number of years in London called ‘Creativity Works’ in partnership with Create Jobs – A New Direction. They are a youth employment agency that has a specific remit of increasing diversity, equity and inclusion within the creative industries. It is one of the most powerful professional relationships I have had because I learnt so much about the various barriers young people might experience when trying to access certain opportunities and how to support them to overcome these. Another powerful outcome was the networks the young people created with each other and professionals they met on the programme that continue to this day.”

How the project works

The young people on the project will create a special edition of HIP, about their lives in Hastings and issues important to them, through multimedia journalism co-created with the wider community. We hope to engage people from working class backgrounds, people from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds; people with experience of exclusion; incarceration; looked-after children; young parents or
carers; differently-abled people; people from the GRT and LGBT communities.

The programme will seek to build vocational skills as well as support creativity, confidence and well-being through the creation of a supportive peer and professional network. It is hoped that this project will offer additional funding, new talent, a wider professional network and new audiences for HIP.

Shannon adds: “We will design a programme specifically with these young people in mind and support them to build the skills and confidence to create multimedia stories about their lives and their town. We will then print a special edition of the newspaper and find various ways to showcase this work in the town and online.”

CREDIT: Nour Alezou

As a relative newcomer to St Leonards, Shannon has become aware of the energy and talent in this town: “Having lived in St Leonards for two years I know how so many individuals and organisations will pull together around this initiative and these young people and support them into whatever comes next for them, further education, internships, employment etc, and I hope that this cohort will in turn support the next as tutors and mentors as we have seen happen in the programme in London.”

Support the Crowdfunder

If the Crowdfunder is successful, we have been promised matched-funding as one of five projects to receive £5,000 in this way from the East Sussex County Council’s Community Wellbeing Fund. But ONLY if the Crowdfunder is successful, and the deadline is December 23rd! We hope that everyone who cares about the future of local journalism and increased representation will help us.

• We will also have support from Fujifilm UK and The Newspaper Club, East Sussex Career Hub, Eggtooth Hastings, Hastings Contemporary, Xtrax Young People’s Centre, Refugee Buddy Project and Hastings Radio.

• Please, support the future of local journalism and the future of young people in the town! The address is www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/hasting-independent-press-youth-training-project