TODAY is our fifth birthday. We launched on July 1st, 2013.

Back in 2012, the Carnegie Trust https://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk chose five partners for a venture called Neighbourhood News. They asked a question: “Do you know an area that doesn’t get enough news?” Our answer was yes. We were and are not there to compete but to add.

Since 2008, the Harlow Citizen went, the Harlow Herald folded, leaving just the Harlow Star.

We were already running one on line newspaper, www.yourthurrock.com (est. Sept 2008) and as we were based in Harlow, this seemed like perfect opportunity. They also liked the fact that we filmed a lot of our news.

So we launched. To be honest, it has been our junior paper for four years but in June 2017, we made a commitment to up our game and publish up to 70 stories a week. Between June 2017 and June 2018, we smashed over one million page views.

So we are doing ok. We have a long way to go and will be doing a lot more promotion so we can make as many people aware of what we do. You get a fair idea of who you audience is when you put a shout out for details of School Fetes and you get twelve schools responding in 24 hours.

We would like to thank all those who have backed us, especially those at the beginning.

So, as we say “Eat, Sleep, Report, Repeat”.

Michael Casey
Word Butcher
July 1st 2018