We’ve been covering current affairs in South Devon for more than five years now, and have established ourselves as a permanent feature on the media horizon.

The Herald Express mentioned the regular local history columns from Kevin Dixon, Torquay’s Other History, which explore the sometimes weird – always wonderful – history of Torquay that often gets overlooked.

The column is an ideal addition to the People’s Republic of South Devon, and managed to achieve what we always set out to – it’s engaged its audience, who have in turn got in touch sending in their own stories and eye witness accounts from their time in Torquay.

Media background: I am a Plymouth-based writer, web editor, sub editor, digital marketer, and designer with almost 10 years of professional experience. I helped set up the News And Media Republic group in 2005 and am responsible for some of the day-to-day management of the People’s Republic of South Devon, D&CFilm, SouthWestShows, the Devon Week, and ArtsCulture websites. I have also worked as a sub editor, web editor and writer for South West Media Group. I have a passion for movies and am involved with the local film scene. I help host the monthly CINE networking event at Exeter Phoenix as part of my D&CFilm responsibilities and recently appeared on Riviera FM in Torbay. I have written a short film (due to be shot in April 2011) and am currently writing a feature. I was also recently asked to submit a comprehensive six-month digital strategy for the Royal Cornwall Show 2011.

Religion: Atheist.

Politics: Lefty.

This section is inspired by Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do?) from his Buzzmachine site and we’ve taken the questions from The New York Times freelancer questionnaire as of mid-2006:

1. Please list your other current employers, whether full time or part time

N/A

2. For what other employers have you worked in the last three years?

South West Media Group.

3. What sort of volunteer work do you do regularly, if any, and for whom? (Please include any public relations, advocacy or advisory board involvement.)

None.

4. Do you do any work paid or unpaid in politics or government? Have you done any lobbying of governmental bodies?

No.

5. Do you have any financial investments or financial ties that may limit your ability to cover specific topics free of conflict, and if so, what are the topics?

No.

6. Although we don’t regulate the activities of spouses, partners or immediate family members of our contributors, do any of their professional or personal involvements or any of their financial investments or ties make certain topics inappropriate for you, and if so, what are the topics?

No.

7. Have you accepted any free trips, junkets or press trips in the last two years? Have you accepted any substantial free merchandise or discounts from people we might cover?

No.

8. Has anything you’ve written later resulted in a published editor’s note or retraction for deliberate falsehood or plagiarism or become the subject of a lawsuit involving allegations of deliberate falsehood? (If yes, please include details about the publication and your role in the article or story. If a lawsuit, please describe the disposition of the case.)

No.

Have we covered everything? Email any questions you have to paul@newsandmediarepublic.org

Media background: In Devon I’ve worked for Northcliffe in its regional editorial section and the Mid-Devon Advertiser, where I stayed for five years before leaving to become editor of Art in Devon for a year. Since then I’ve been a director of News and Media Republic and editor of the People’s Republic of South Devon, D+CFilm, Arts+Culture and the Devon Week websites, and is publisher of the Arts+Culture magazine. On the websites, I often write under the pen name of Cptn. My career began in copy writing and I worked in various publications until I was the chief sub on two weekly publications that dealt with local government issues, Surveyor and the Municipal Journal.

Religion: I describe myself as an agnostic. Despite my family being Catholic, I was not christened, and have attended Church of England schools. Half of my wife’s family are Jewish and the other half are Catholic. Religion is a great source of spiritual comfort, cultural identity and personal development and although I have no faith myself, I believe in the right for others to practice their own.

Politics: I am probably what would be described as a natural Labour voter, although I voted Liberal Democrat in the European and Devon County Council election in 2009. I was a member of the Labour Party during the 1990s and am a member of the NUJ. I am suspicious of any group which has the impression of becoming a self-involved political class and I doubt the need for political parties at a local level. I am a strong believer in the freedom of speech, and also the responsibility that brings – so I will avoid covering groups and individuals which seek to discriminate or use derogatory stereotypes.

Financial ties: I have no financial ties or constraints to my reporting.

Boards, committees: Through D+CFilm, I am part of the organising committee of the View From Here film festival in South Devon, along with officers from Teignbridge District Council, Coombeshead College, and arts collective Blind Ditch. The festival’s main sponsor is South West Screen. D+CFilm also sponsors the Two Short Nights film festival at the Exeter Phoenix.

This section is inspired by Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do?) from his Buzzmachine site and we’ve taken the questions from The New York Times freelancer questionnaire as of mid-2006:

1. Please list your other current employers, whether full time or part time

N/A

2. For what other employers have you worked in the last three years?

Art in Devon
The Mid-Devon Advertiser
2.dot.0 (corporate film company)

3. What sort of volunteer work do you do regularly, if any, and for whom? (Please include any public relations, advocacy or advisory board involvement.)

Newton Town Youth Football Club newsletter
Flyer for Transition Newton Abbot
View From Here film festival organising committee
I have spoken on New Media to members of Devon Open Studios

4. Do you do any work paid or unpaid in politics or government? Have you done any lobbying of governmental bodies?

No

5. Do you have any financial investments or financial ties that may limit your ability to cover specific topics free of conflict, and if so, what are the topics?

No.

6. Although we don’t regulate the activities of spouses, partners or immediate family members of our contributors, do any of their professional or personal involvements or any of their financial investments or ties make certain topics inappropriate for you, and if so, what are the topics?

No. although there are times I have written about my wife’s writing career as a fiction novelist.

7. Have you accepted any free trips, junkets or press trips in the last two years? Have you accepted any substantial free merchandise or discounts from people we might cover?

In 2004 I went to the European Parliament in Strassburg for the Mid-Devon Advertiser, paid for by the EP Press Office. In 2007 I followed a group of Devon artists taking part in an exchange exhibition in Newcastle, which was funded by Devon Artsculture.

8. Has anything you’ve written later resulted in a published editor’s note or retraction for deliberate falsehood or plagiarism or become the subject of a lawsuit involving allegations of deliberate falsehood? (If yes, please include details about the publication and your role in the article or story. If a lawsuit, please describe the disposition of the case.)

No.

Have we covered everything? Email any questions you have to lee@newsandmediarepublic.org

We wanted to create something that would actually generate revenue for journalists, photographers and creatives. From our experience, the pay in media in the South West is/was terrible, the investment in kit and training was minimal.

We wanted our profits to go back into the company in terms of investment or training. Or back into the community.

When we set up our first site back in 2005, the People’s Republic of South Devon, it was something of an experiment. We had a vague idea of what we wanted to achieve in terms of coverage and our own development and what we reckoned we could offer that was a little different in the media landscape.

Needless to say, starting with something called the People’s Republic of South Devon raised a few eyebrows – still does – but it encapsulated the collaborative, defiant approach we were looking for, and we wanted to distinguish ourselves from the *clears throat* usual local coverage.

It quickly became clear that the social enterprise route was the direction we wanted our company to travel. And we set up News and Media Republic Ltd as a social enterprise to cover the business activities of the ventures we were developing, which now include the People’s Republic of South Devon; D+CFilm; ArtsCulture; the Devon Week and SouthWestShows.

Why social enterprise?

The gathering and communication of news is not a purely commercial venture. There are social benefits that derive from sharing information and breaking down barriers to news and knowledge.

Also we wanted to create a platform for people to share their knowledge. An idea was to provide subsidised training for those willing to learn new skills to help them develop journalistic rigour. This could help inform and ultimately help bring confidence to the community, and create a knowledgeable, questioning audience.

The other side of this was that we wanted to provide opportunities for professionals. We wanted to create jobs, not cut them.

And the peer-led features on our arts and film sites were intended to raise profile and support the creative economy, while offering practitioners an opportunity to develop new skills and look at their practice/sector in a new light, which would feed into their ongoing development.

The proposition is an attractive one to advertisers – local for the local markets; and wider for the demographic and more theme-based advertiser. We toyed with subscriptions, and added paid-for sections, but there are so many barriers to information that we wanted to keep the information and stories we provided as accessible as possible – keeping our readership high and being more attractive to advertisers, who were keen to get their message out to our audience.

Using tiered ad rates, we are accessible to small local businesses as well as larger national enterprises. With Addiply we’ve given part of the control of the advertising to the advertiser themselves. And basing our ad rates on views rather than time just seemed fairer.

We’re not confined to websites and are keen to make inroads into the sector of the community that doesn’t like, doesn’t want to or can’t use the internet to get their news. It’s something we’re working on as we pursue our other goals.