Happy Christmas From Nailed

I would like to begin by thanking all the contributors at Nailed for their hard work, tireless energy and valuable time.

All our contributors, including myself, are unpaid and have put many hours of their time into making Nailed happen for the past two years.

In 2018 Nailed will reach the milestones of our 1000th article and (fingers crossed) our 1000th ‘like’ on Facebook, but these are just numbers at the end of the day, what is important to me as Editor is the quality of the stories we provide and the how well we communicate with the wider community. Every piece of feedback we get, whether it is a retweet, like, share, follow, comment, or email means the world to us and we appreciate the time you spend on our site.

As well as covering hundreds of stories around Belper the three ‘big’ accomplishments for Nailed in 2017 have been joining IMPRESS, becoming a member of ICNN and being accepted onto the BBC’s Local News partnership.

IMPRESS

I’m not going to pretend that regulatory bodies are the most exciting issue ever, but joining IMPRESS gives Nailed a recognised journalistic standard to adhere to. It both legitimises us as a publication and provides us with a safety net should anything bad happen. Upon being accepted we were awarded a ‘trust in journalism’ mark as a publisher, have legal protection against court costs (should we ever need them) and now have a strict code of conduct and complaints procedure by which to follow.

ICNN

Cardiff University’s Centre For Community Journalism has been championing hyperlocal publishing for many years and have worked hard to gather as many publications in the UK under one umbrella they could.

This year they formally launched their Independent Community News Network. The ICNN is a representative body for the independent community and hyperlocal news sector. We became members, have the possibility of joining their advisory board and will be sending one of our staff to their first conference in January.

BBC Local News Partnership

In November we applied and were accepted onto the BBC’s recently created Local News Partnership programme. We had to demonstrate that we were maintaining a high journalistic standard that covered all aspects of public institutions, organisations and civic life, including councils and public bodies.

The BBC state: “The aim of the partnership, is to invest in the local news media, increase coverage of public services and institutions and use the expertise of both the BBC and the local news sector for the benefit for all audiences.”

Being part of the LNP will allow Nailed to better collaborate with other news sources in the region and also share our own stories with a wider audience. It is hoped that this will begin around February time.

And finally…

Early next year our AGM will be open to the public and it is a great time to discover what we have been doing behind the scenes. As a community group we don’t just need contributors, we also need people to join the committee, fundraise, provide technical assistance with the site and help with social media. So if you have a talent and a little bit of spare time then do contact us.

The site will be quiet over the Christmas period, but the news never stops, so if anything urgent does happen then fear not for your friendly neighbourhood newspaper will be on hand to cover it.

And that is it for 2017.

From everyone here at Nailed I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!