London 360 will report on London community stories and local campaigns as well as bringing a fresh viewpoint to the stories on the news agenda across the capital.
Media Trust is calling for young people across London to become citizen journalists, feeding local stories to the ‘London Community Reporters’ news hub for the programme and reporting on the issues that matter to them.
The ‘London Community Reporters’ scheme is a one-year initiative funded by City Bridge Trust, which aims to equip and empower 120 young Londoners aged 18-25, with practical journalism skills and valuable hands-on media experience.
The ‘London Community Reporters’ news hub is the first of a connected network of news hubs around the UK which will be supported by Media Trust. As a result of funding from Big Lottery Fund news hubs will be established across the UK to support citizen journalism and to help communities and charities get their voices heard.
London 360 ambassador Noel Clarke said: “I’m happy to support the London 360 news team and young reporters across the capital city. I’ve always championed young people that don’t always have easy access to the formal systems in place and feel it’s so important to have initiatives like this to give invaluable training to the young people who could be our future media players and to throw them in at the deep end.
“It’s also a great opportunity to get important local London stories told to the nation. It'll make a real difference to the levels of communication between the generations, cultures and communities of London. There are so many interesting and inspiring stories, most are just waiting to be heard.”
Jasmine Dotiwala, London 360 news editor, said: “This project will give young reporters, who don’t have much experience in the field, on-the-job training in filming, research, scripting, producing, writing and editing. They’ll be interviewing real power players and members of local communities. This training will allow them to deliver an informative and compelling TV show on Community Channel.”
“They’ll leave at the end of their time on the project as media all-rounders and will have overcome the all-important stumbling block that states all graduates need experience. We also need young citizen journalists to feed their community’s stories to the Community Reporters. It would be great if organisations working with young people could let them know about this fantastic opportunity to get their stories told on national television.”
Media partners including The Voice, Mobo.com, Red pages and TV Collective have also signed up to show their support for the initiative.
The first episode of London 360 will broadcast on Community Channel on Monday 20 June at 7pm. The show will broadcast at 7am, 7pm, 12am and 12pm on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Community Channel can be viewed 24 hours a day on Sky 539 and Virgin TV 233 and between 5am and 8am on Freeview 87.
