Guided walks, community action and increased revenue: what happened during Indie News Week 2026?

Rounding up all the highlights from a packed Indie News Week! 

That’s a wrap on Indie News Week 2025! This year’s campaign saw 30 outlets pull together for 34 events, engaging at least 500 people across the country - all on top of their regular day jobs of keeping local, indie news afloat, keeping communities informed across the UK. 

Here’s a few of the highlights from this year’s Indie News Week. 

The London Newsmakers kicked off the week with an event to celebrate and explore London’s indie news ecosystem. Panels on the challenges of community reporting at borough-level and insights into the future of city-wide outlets led to some rich discussions, hosted by Social Streets and Social Spider. 

Image credit: Kelvin Wakefield

The West Leeds Dispatch brought together the local community with community reporters to put their brains to the test for a café-quiz night, with representation from the local WI and city councillors – then opened up their newsroom later in the week to show people how their news gets made.  

Image credit: QueerAF

QueerAF’s podcast ‘How to tell better LGBTQIA+ stories in podcasting’ is now live. Recorded during Indie News Week with a live audience at the Acast Studios in London, the panel featured Phil Samba, Holly Newson and Ki Grissin. 

VIEWdigital marked Indie News Week in Belfast during a week that witnessed a wave of racist attacks against migrants and refugees in Northern Ireland. The event highlighted their new Community Journalism Project for migrant women and disabled people. 

Image credit: Beckie Shuker

In Glasgow, the Ferret, New Internationalist and Greater Govanhill joined forces for an evening of thoughtful discussion on how best the community can respond to the rolling news coming from Palestine. It was standing-room-only at event in the Govanhill Community Newsroom as residents heard from local campaigners and reflected on the role of local media. 

Image credit: Beckie Shuker

South West Durham News and The Northern Eco would win the hypothetical award for busiest outlets of the week, recording a podcast on Monday, then hosting an open newsroom on Wednesday, a nature walk on Thursday and a market stall on Friday! The duo met with campaigners trying to prevent a toxic waste incinerator being based in their community, heard about the launch of a new cycling and walking train and joined students from local school Cleves Cross for a ramble through Ferryhill Carrs, an at-risk site due to future development plans.  

Image credit: Island Echo

The Isle of Wight saw 200 people gather in-person with more joining online for a State of the Island debate, hosted by the Island Echo and Isle of Wight Observer. The lively evening featured a host of local decision-makers, including Joe Robertson MP, Richard Quigley MP, council leader Phil Jordan, former General Secretary of GMB Sir Paul Kenny and Head of Marketing at theme park Blackgang Chine Laura Baxter. 

Blog Preston invited the local community to get a sneak-peek of their new-look website, welcoming 30 readers to ask questions about the future plans for the outlet, as well as hear about the outlet’s plans for community journalism and expanded arts and culture coverage. 

For the first time this year, PINF launched an audience survey to hear what our Indie News Week visitors made of the campaign. Our findings suggest that events help the public to get to know their local news provider better, increase trust and understanding of how news is produced.  

In line with PINF’s 2025 Audience Survey released in June, 28% of attendees didn’t know that it was an option to support their news provider financially. More than half would consider becoming a paid subscriber as a result of attending an event.  

It’s also not too late to sign our brand-new local news petition and call on the UK Government to keep local news alive for future generations. We’ve just passed 400 signatures, with the total continuing to climb. 

Indie news providers agree that bringing their communities together for in-person events during Indie News Week is hugely valuable, simultaneously giving readers insight into how the news is made, raising essential funds to secure the future of local news, and giving a boost by connecting with local people who value what they do.  

One outlet, Salamander News, even grew their revenue by 25% as a result implementing suggestions made during our fundraising training session, provided pro bono by expert Judi Kamien!  

As one indie publisher said at the end of the week - ‘let’s do it again!’ If you want to get involved, or have an idea for Indie News Week 2026, it’s never too soon to get in touch. Reach out contact@publicinterestnews.org.uk with any feedback, questions or suggestions – we’d love to hear from you.  

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