19 Jun 2026
Across the UK, independent news publishers like the St Albans Times are celebrating Indie News Week and highlighting the importance of quality local journalism.
Independent news is going through a period of huge change, whether that be debates around public notices in Parliament and the BBC Charter renewal process, to growing concerns around AI, media ownership and the power of big tech.
There are good reasons why those mainstream news providers owned by billionaires, overseas shareholders, and hedge funds have had a lot of bad press in recent years.
The St Albans Times does not work for the bottom line of a corporate multinational. We work for you. To keep doing this, we need your support to help indie news survive and thrive.
So how did we get here?
Before the arrival of the internet, local journalism was a thriving and highly profitable industry, something it’s almost hard to conceive when you see how many regional titles are a shell of their former selves, with thousands of journalists laid off over the last few decades.
In some parts of the country, that means people don’t have any meaningful journalism in their local areas, ‘news deserts’ where residents are less knowledgeable about what is happening in their communities, and where disinformation spread on social media is stoking tension and disorder.
Independent news holds authorities to account, creates pride in place and increases civic participation, strengthening democracy and ensuring communities know exactly what is happening on their doorsteps.
The big corporations who run the legacy newspaper titles don’t care about this. Their interest is purely in profit, and for them, clickbait is king. Many of their products are filled with stories written by reporters who might have never visited the towns, villages and cities they are featuring, churning out content for the sake of content.
But across the country, an absence of quality journalism has resulted in a rise in independent titles free from the constraints of consumer media, offering more in-depth, community-focused reporting than can be found elsewhere, funded through reader subscriptions, local advertising or charitable grants.
This is public service journalism at its finest – products written by reporters who know councillors personally, who visit their local schools, and can be seen walking the streets in search of news. This in turn has shaped a loyalty for their titles which is hard for the mainstream media to replicate.
It’s not been an easy ride though. Monthly financial subscriptions, even in an affluent area like St Albans, reflect only a small percentage of the readership, grant funding is competitive and often short-term, and advertising from local businesses can be inconsistent.
That is to say nothing of the fact that many of these titles – the St Albans Times included – rely on one or two people carrying enormous workloads for a very modest pay, with no proper holidays and a need to cover stories 365 days of the year.
There is also the legal exposure to consider, with libel law expensive to defend against, and a risk that smaller outlets can be intimidated into silence by the simple threat of a defamation claim. Every story which appears in these pages has to be rigorously checked to avoid any legal repercussions, and even that is no guarantee of plain sailing.
Community journalism is not just something which is nice to have though, as academic research consistently shows that areas with active local news will see higher voter turnout in council elections, more public engagement with council consultations, and greater accountability for public spending. It is therefore part of the infrastructure of a functioning local democracy.
So what can you do to support the St Albans Times and ensure it grows and thrives? If you can afford a few pounds each month then click on the GoCardless link on our website and we will contact you personally to discuss how much you would like to commit. Tell your friends about us and spread the word. Share your stories, good or bad, so that we can feature them in our pages.
And above all, keep reading, because you might not realise just how lucky you are to have a dedicated news media of this nature. So many communities across the UK are bereft of such a product, and their residents rely on unaccountable, untrustworthy posts on social media to find out what is happening, leading to the rise of political extremism and misinformation which threatens the very fabric of our society.
