A community newspaper which has been published for more than 30 years could face closure unless it secures new sources of funding.
The North Edinburgh News is given funding through the Fairer Scotland Fund but this will end next year – leaving the newspaper desperately searching for ways to keep it going.
The monthly free newspaper was set up by volunteers more than 30 years ago to serve the local community and highlight the positive achievements of the area.
But editor Mary Burnside, who has been involved with the NEN since 1989, said it needed funds of at least £45,000 to keep it going for another year.
She said: “It is looking quite grim. Being a newspaper, there’s not that many options open to us in terms of securing funding.
“I have been here 20 years and we are all really committed to the project so we don’t want to see it fail.
“It is very much local. It is an area where there’s quite a few problems and it is quite a strong campaigning community and, over the years, having its own newspaper has meant these campaigns have received quite a good profile.
“It has helped to change things for the better – I think having the newspaper there has definitely helped.
“We are doing ok for advertising but we don’t want to lose the ethos of what the paper is about by just becoming another freesheet with lots of ads.”
Staff and the voluntary board of directors will be stepping up their campaign to save the paper over the next few months.
The newspaper previously received council funding through the Edinburgh Community Newspapers Trust but this stopped three years ago.
Staff who work for the NEN have already had a cut in their hours and salaries because of a reduction in funding.
The newspaper has an estimated readership of 35,000 – with 14,500 copies being printed each month and distributed to homes and buildings such as community centres and schools.
So what do you think? You can download the latest edition of NEN here and we think you will agree that online it looks great – so why bother with printing at all? Or would that mean abandoning some of the readers?
