Subang Jaya residents have a community newspaper to keep themselves up to date with happenings in the neighbourhood. Residents can pick up an issue, free, on the first Wednesday of each month in selected areas – it covers events, places and issues affecting the neighbourhood. The Subang Jaya Echo is a rarity in Malaysia – a community newspaper.

It was established in 2007 by journalist Teoh Teik Hoong, and there are now Kuala Lumpur and Penang versions (Edit: A reader informs me that there’s also an Ipoh version) – though I’m not sure if a physical version of those exist.

It’s also a dying breed.

Community journalism was never a prolific branch of journalism in Malaysia to begin with, what with newspaper publishing licenses so hard to get. (In fact, the SJ Echo was the first community newspaper in Malaysia!) Most of our newspapers are national outfits.

With the Internet threatening the lives of many Malaysian newspapers, I do fear for the health of SJ Echo and other outfits like it. Will it survive the digital age?

The importance of local

The metro section used to be one of my favourite sections of a newspaper for me. Each time I visit any foreign city, that would be one of the first sections I look at, because it’s a way to understand a city.

In fact, I went to journalism school fully intending to be a journalist who catalogued the going-ons of a city or a small town – a metro journalist.

Fate, of course, had other plans and I ended up working at the Features desk of The Star and later, the news desk, where I worked on national and global issues rather than city issues.

But my love for city-focused stories has never faded away.

The metro section of the paper used to be one of the thickest sections in The Star. In its heyday, bumper issues used to be abou 30-40 pages thick. Businesses were scrambling to get their events noticed by people. Because the metro section was very geographically focused, it was prime advertising space.

But distressingly, as the digital revolution continues to chip away at newspaper profits the section has gotten leaner and leaner until sometimes, it’s only 8 pages thick.

I worry about the health of community journalism if this continues. While discourse on national and global affairs are important, we do need to know what’s happening in our communities.

Fortunately, it’s not altogether dead – news about local happenings are now spread across the Internet on social media and blogs. But getting a cohesive picture of what’s happening is challenging, and furthermore, the click-driven aspect of articles these days do not encourage news that doesn’t get clicks or profits. Writers and publishers are pressured to write about what’s trendy or what’s viral – news about clogged drains, community issues or small-time businesses barely get a mention unless they have “hit” potential.

But as much as the Internet has been a bane to community journalism, could it also be its saviour?

Around the globe various online experiments of citizen and community journalism taking root, and they are fascinating to watch:

Non-profit local journalism

Could media outfits run like a non-profit organisation in the future? But even in the US, non-profit news outfits struggle to stay afloat: Montana Free Press

Memberships

Something like Malaysiakini, local-centric news blogs could offer memberships – a fee to access its content. But seeing how online news journalism is struggling to also make ends meet, I wonder if this business model is viable for Malaysia, where content is just not as valued. Example: MedCity Beat

City or Neighbourhood Blogs

Personally, I’m the most excited and optimistic about this option. These blogs are often created and maintained by volunteers who document the going-ons of a neighbourhood, be it a lost pet, an upcoming event, businesses opening and closing and a pothole or a damaged street light. Here’s an example: A list of neighbourhood blogs in Seattle. Imagine if Malaysia had a network of these?

Whatever the solution may be, I think it’s really vital for us to acknowledge that journalism IS vital to a democracy. Community journalism, even more so as it keeps the citizenry informed about the going-ons in a neighbourhood. Would a business model rise up to save the day?