Simona Bisiani

Local news launches, closures, and the state of play in 2025 We’ve launched our latest report into the state of local news provision across the UK. In this post, Joe Mitchell, PINF’s deputy director, explains why we do it and shares some of the key findings.

The 2025 UK Local News Report from the @publicinterestnews.org.uk is out! We analysed 18 months of changes in the local news ecosystem, mapped news deserts etc. Bonus: we looked at demographic data + LDRS. Report, interactive charts and data here: www.publicinterestnews.org.uk/blog/local-n...

magnificent. what is your approach to finding combinations? is there something that can be done to speed up the process beyond manual sorting through catalogues and visually comparing record-DAG pairs?

Community, I need your help! I'm looking for software / python or R package to parse digitised newspapers and automatically detect / segment & extract articles (pictures not so important). does anyone have any tips? please reshare with your network if you have access to the wide CH/CSS community!

The 2025 English Indices of Multiple Deprivation came out today! Updating all my models on the relationship between local news provision and the various dimensions of deprivation. Meanwhile, here's some viz for the nerds: www.datawrapper.de/_/AW9I8/
www.datawrapper.de/_/lNZMS/

Next year I will finish my phd. I’m looking for perspectives on what paths people take afterwards within academia. What did you get up to after the phd? Do you have any tips for finding and applying to positions in Europe and North America (as a European?) I am also keen on writing grant proposals.

what do you make of this?

also looks like salaries have not raised with inflation at the same rate across the rank spectrum (thus being at a lower rank institution means being worse off?)

I also wonder if different disciplines tell different stories

Are you interested in local journalism research? Next Friday we are having a free online webinar bringing together a premium selection of UK-based industry leaders, policymakers, journalists, and academics to explore how research can shape the future of local media. Check the link for more!

Nonprofit news is growing strong — especially local nonprofit news, a new report shows Nonprofit news outlets of all types are enjoying revenue growth — but those that focus specifically on local news, rather than state, national, or global news, are doing especially well, according to…

83% of local nonprofit news organizations have increased revenue growth by at least 10% over the last three years, compared to 71% of state and regional publications and 76% of national and global outlets.

Professor Agnes Gulyas approached me to work on a report drawing from academic research on local media to signpost priority directions for industry and policymakers working to make this industry sustainable and protect the value it brings to communities and society.

Report is out!

you are defending on my birthday. this can only bring you luck. I'll eat cake for the both of us 🎉

I Spent $11 to Hire an AI model as a Researcher Digging into Newspaper Buyouts Here's how I did it, and what I found

i've written a short blog about how to quickly prototype prompts in openai and use them programmatically. used this workflow today to speedup a manual research task.

How Local Is Local News? And Does it Matter? I'm asking you.

Late night tales from your one and only.

academic dopamine hit: two papers accepted by @comphumresearch.bsky.social this week 📚
journal article on LLMs for toponym resolution and conference paper on deriving a typology of subnational media based on coverage spatial properties. off to Luxembourg in December to present :) links to come!

How I accidentally spent one year building a database about local news outlets The PhD detour that might help track Britain's local news crisis?

Last night, I wrote on The Local News Cartographer about my early phd work on building a database of all local news outlets in the UK. One year of research inside a 10(?) minute read. Learn the perks and pain of gathering your own phd data.

are you a philosopher? sounds like you 🤓

@mediareformuk.bsky.social I think you can feel me there

incredible dry humour by AI summarising what it’s like to end up in a local news merger operation.

Yep, I'm on Substack: to make my research accessible and useful, I'll translate my work into digestible posts that explain how I study the local news market at scale, through text mining, to ask questions about media ownership, news deserts, and democracy: shorturl.at/q3VKI

Seeing David Lazer in the flesh at #ic2s2 in my habitual Norrköping feels surreal and moving to say the least.

Mobility and Urban Science 2 chaired by the one and only @lecoursonnais.bsky.social. #ic2s2 is off to a great start.

What an awesome past few days attending @dh2025lisbon.bsky.social and getting to see *oh so beautiful* Lisbon at the same time. Still on a high from @icwsm.bsky.social, I feel honoured and humbled to having the chance to be in the room with scholars I admire and learn from. @ic2s2.bsky.social next!

don’t these look pretty? when I did my MSc at @iasliu.bsky.social’s then-just-begun CSS program many of these early graduates were our (very friendly and patient) TAs. Nice to see what they were up to beyond dealing with us, and the pool of graduates from IAS growing.

To all my newfound connections at @icwsm.bsky.social coming to @ic2s2.bsky.social in beautiful Norrköping (p.s. I'll be around, hit me up to see the best bar + city gems), the wonderful @hendrik-erz.de at @iasliu.bsky.social has built a tool to get you on top of things when it comes to schedule!

So fulfilling to see the database I have built at the @publicinterestnews.org.uk being leveraged by @mediareformuk.bsky.social and the fantastic Tom Chivers for the 2025 edition of "Who Owns the UK Media?"

To know more: www.publicinterestnews.org.uk/local-news-m...

Your coffee obsession is hilarious. I would love to see a dataset of all coffee-related posts you have written over the years (and what is the relative volume of these). Do you thoughts on this?

So excited to hit @icwsm.bsky.social conference with a dataset paper from my PhD research at @peoplecentredai.bsky.social. I will present tomorrow at @aau.dk in cyclist-friendly Copenhagen! Find me at the poster madness session in the afternoon!

🚨We’re hiring postdocs in Computational Social Science!
📍The Swedish Excellence Centre for Computational Social Science (SweCSS)
📅 Apply by June 3
🔗 liu.se/en/work-at-l...

well done BBC

Thrilled to announce my submission was accepted for the Local News Researchers Workshop 2025 at @uncchapelhill.bsky.social! Excited for my 1st ever U.S. trip and connect with global researchers in this domain. I will share insights on large-scale local news text analysis. Event: shorturl.at/OSRRn

simply adorable <3