The Labour & Liverpool project began as an experiment. What if we considered a new way of reporting politics? If we explored the future of Labour in weekly articles over a series of months, and through a city considered one of Jeremy Corbyn’s strongholds? What if we asked readers to guide this journalism?
We can experiment with different approaches to journalism because the Guardian does not have a proprietor, but is instead funded by a trust that exists only to support the Guardian. This allows us to be completely independent.
Later this week, the Labour & Liverpool series will come to its conclusion with the publication of a long, in-depth article ahead of Labour party conference. The project has given me a chance to explore a city towards which I now feel a great deal of warmth, and I have enjoyed reporting at grassroots level the changes taking place in the party. These, of course, have taken on added resonance given the controversy around Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith’s leadership challenge.
We know our readers are as divided over the leadership as the party itself, and indeed staff inside the Guardian. Conversations below the line on articles about Corbyn and Smith can be too polarised, not allowing for constructive debate. On these Labour & Liverpool instalments, I think there has been a better standard of discussion.
We set out to consider how journalists and readers can better work together on a story. Some Guardian stories have already proved that collaboration can be extremely fruitful, but often the relationship between journalist and reader exists in a more piecemeal way: usually it takes the form of tip-offs from readers about stories, letters to the editor, comments below articles online, or directly by email or through Twitter. We have expanded and refined our methods of collaboration with this series, with readers’ knowledge and experience guiding how we reported the story from the outset.
Along the way I have met readers and reported their views of Corbyn, interviewed some of Liverpool’s politicians, and considered how Labour might make constituency party meetings more welcoming. I was among Labour members in Birkenhead and Wallasey the day that all meetings of constituency Labour parties were suspended during the leadership campaign.
My interview with Peter Kilfoyle, the former “Witchfinder General” who rooted out Militant, uncovered some frank, and sometimes surprising, views. And I enjoyed the meet-up with readers in the Fly in the Loaf pub.
I hope you have also enjoyed the journey. Some of you have followed each part of the experiment; for others, this may be something you have chanced upon. (If you want to catch up, you might like to start here.)
Since I began this project, the Guardian has announced serious financial losses. The situation is the same for the entire media industry. Our old source of income through advertising is dwindling faster than anyone had thought.
And while some already fund us through subscriptions or buying the paper, most readers don’t. We could throw up a pay wall and demand that everyone gives us money before they read our work. But we’d prefer to ask for it and, in exchange, start a more permanent relationship with those who want it. So we are looking instead for people who value the Guardian’s journalism to support us through a one-off or a monthly contribution.
If you don’t, you’ll continue to be able to receive this journalism for free. But a series like this, of quality journalism, takes time and costs money. I believe it has added some important perspectives on the debate about Labour’s future. And I’d like to thank all those who have taken part, in Liverpool and beyond. I look forward to your reflections on my concluding piece later this week.
• If you can, please help to fund this kind of journalism through a one-off or a monthly contribution.
