Today marks City News’ last digital news day. So we thought we’d take a look back at some of the highlights and the lessons we learned along the way.
It’s been a hands-on, educational process for our MA Broadcast students. Getting to grips with the beasts that are Premier Pro and Photoshop. Tailoring stories, pitches, and scripts to a digital audience. Thinking about compelling hooks, newsworthy pegs, and “stopping the scroll.” Perfecting thumbnails and captions. And, of course, every broadcast student’s worst nightmare – writing articles!
But with each digital news day, our MA Broadcast students got better and better, increasing the quality and quantity of digital news stories.
Long gone are the days of producing just one bit of content. Students are now simulating what a typical newsroom would demand of them, churning out two, three, or four bits of digital journalism on the day.
Matt Capon gives one of his famous motivational speeches during pitching
Crucially, our students have been making use of Matt Capon’s treasured City News content wheel, learning to spin one piece of journalism into multiple platform-native stories. Students have been adapting their initial ideas into short, tailored content for each platform, all designed to reach different audiences. And the results are proven.
This term alone, the City News Instagram account passed 1 million content views. Between January 19 and March 19, our content reached 417,836 accounts, up 254% on the previous period. 81.7% of views came from non-followers, driven by discovery, while reels proved the most popular format, attracting 86.4% of views.
This year witnessed the birth of the City News Rundown, and then its swift death (sorry, ITV). We had our very first YouTube live, courtesy of Maisie Norris. And we’ve been expanding across platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, X, and Reddit (RIP!).
City News passes 1m content views across Instagram in term 2
City News exclusives
Our MA Broadcast students haven’t just been mimicking a real newsroom, they’ve been delivering impactful, original journalism.
Kate Kenyon’s video exploring whether London should have women-only tube carriages was one of the first to go viral, amassing over 100,000 views on TikTok. She says:
“I remember working on this video well, because it was my first digital news day. It had been really tricky to find and make contact with Camille, the main voice in my story – I had to do a lot of detective work!
It was exciting – and entirely unexpected – when this video reached so many viewers and sparked a big conversation in the comments. It showed me I’d tapped into a contentious issue and found a real story. Seeing it heavily covered by other media in the days and weeks that followed was validating – it felt great to have gotten in there early.”
Women-only tube carriages? The idea’s making tracks, but is this a backwards step? City News’ Kate Kenyon reports. #London#tfl#CityNews#tubes#underground
The Met Police said no, and no, and no again, until finally they said yes. That’s after Hana Williams’ article on live facial recognition suggested that about 0.5% of Live Facial Recognition alerts were false when measured against total alerts, not faces scanned, forcing the Met into a right of reply.
Izzy Airey’s video exploring Fulham’s posh stereotype drew plenty of comments from football fans on Instagram. Lily Wallen exposed some of the brutal work-life balance Junior Auditors face at the Big Four accountancy firms. Emily Smith had an exclusive interview with a female police officer working for the Met in the wake of Panorama’s Charing Cross documentary.
And Oliver Ortega Smith showed how you might be being secretly filmed in London. Oli says, “Dealing with issues such as public filming can be challenging. There’s a fine line between legal filming and voyeurism. And that makes it all the more important to talk about. In an age where we are all constantly on camera and on video, where does the line lie? That was the question that came from this video.”
The full spectrum of ‘news’
As well as the City News exclusives, we’ve certainly had some fun exploring the full spectrum of ‘news’. We’ve had digital specials including Christmas, Remembrance Day, St Patrick’s Day, and Mother’s Day. And did you know it could be cheaper to fly to Alicante for Valentine’s Day than organising a night out in London? You heard it here first!
We’ve also had plenty of taste tests from shawarma (“mmh shawarma”) to beer to full English (and Welsh) breakfasts. Our main takeaway – journalists love to eat!
Tabloid week allowed our students to get creative, and we didn’t disappoint. Lizzie Rix’s article ‘No Sex and the City’, which explored London’s apparent low sex drive, attracted more views than the City News homepage – no easy feat! Lizzie says she really enjoyed putting her lifestyle specialism to use in tabloid week. She says, “It was really fun to try something different.”
The “Coat of Shagging” crisis caught everyone’s attention during Tabloid Week
From weeing on the Tube to Peter Mandelson’s late-night antics, Jessica Rolfe and Matthew Hayhurst explored how p**s can actually be a news story, without taking it. We’ve even shown you where you can go in a capital with no toilets.
And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also had the odd Olympian pop by for an interview. Thanks to Eddie the Eagle, new friend of City News.
But what’s the most important thing we’ve learnt? CITY NEWS DIGITAL DOESN’T HAVE ACCESS TO PA! Yeah, that one took a while to digest. Oh, and it turns out City News is a hit in Italy thanks to the work of Ludovica Cerci.
In all seriousness, what a year it’s been. Even when our students flirted with the ridiculous, the stories were always underpinned by strong journalism. Students have shown their hunch for London stories and executed them with an understanding of what our ever-growing digital audience wants to see. The future is bright for digital journalism, and it’ll be exciting to see where this year’s cohort ends up.
That’s a wrap on City News digital for now. We’ll see you next year!
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HeadlineThe City News digital wrap-up: highlights from our year in the newsroom
Short HeadlineThat’s a wrap on City News digital
StandfirstSix months and 36 news days later, it's time to say goodbye to City News digital (for now)...and what a year it's been!
Today marks City News’ last digital news day. So we thought we’d take a look back at some of the highlights and the lessons we learned along the way.
It’s been a hands-on, educational process for our MA Broadcast students. Getting to grips with the beasts that are Premier Pro and Photoshop. Tailoring stories, pitches, and scripts to a digital audience. Thinking about compelling hooks, newsworthy pegs, and “stopping the scroll.” Perfecting thumbnails and captions. And, of course, every broadcast student’s worst nightmare – writing articles!
But with each digital news day, our MA Broadcast students got better and better, increasing the quality and quantity of digital news stories.
Long gone are the days of producing just one bit of content. Students are now simulating what a typical newsroom would demand of them, churning out two, three, or four bits of digital journalism on the day.
Matt Capon gives one of his famous motivational speeches during pitching
Crucially, our students have been making use of Matt Capon’s treasured City News content wheel, learning to spin one piece of journalism into multiple platform-native stories. Students have been adapting their initial ideas into short, tailored content for each platform, all designed to reach different audiences. And the results are proven.
This term alone, the City News Instagram account passed 1 million content views. Between January 19 and March 19, our content reached 417,836 accounts, up 254% on the previous period. 81.7% of views came from non-followers, driven by discovery, while reels proved the most popular format, attracting 86.4% of views.
This year witnessed the birth of the City News Rundown, and then its swift death (sorry, ITV). We had our very first YouTube live, courtesy of Maisie Norris. And we’ve been expanding across platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, X, and Reddit (RIP!).
City News passes 1m content views across Instagram in term 2
City News exclusives
Our MA Broadcast students haven’t just been mimicking a real newsroom, they’ve been delivering impactful, original journalism.
Kate Kenyon’s video exploring whether London should have women-only tube carriages was one of the first to go viral, amassing over 100,000 views on TikTok. She says:
“I remember working on this video well, because it was my first digital news day. It had been really tricky to find and make contact with Camille, the main voice in my story – I had to do a lot of detective work!
It was exciting – and entirely unexpected – when this video reached so many viewers and sparked a big conversation in the comments. It showed me I’d tapped into a contentious issue and found a real story. Seeing it heavily covered by other media in the days and weeks that followed was validating – it felt great to have gotten in there early.”
Women-only tube carriages? The idea’s making tracks, but is this a backwards step? City News’ Kate Kenyon reports. #London#tfl#CityNews#tubes#underground
The Met Police said no, and no, and no again, until finally they said yes. That’s after Hana Williams’ article on live facial recognition suggested that about 0.5% of Live Facial Recognition alerts were false when measured against total alerts, not faces scanned, forcing the Met into a right of reply.
Izzy Airey’s video exploring Fulham’s posh stereotype drew plenty of comments from football fans on Instagram. Lily Wallen exposed some of the brutal work-life balance Junior Auditors face at the Big Four accountancy firms. Emily Smith had an exclusive interview with a female police officer working for the Met in the wake of Panorama’s Charing Cross documentary.
And Oliver Ortega Smith showed how you might be being secretly filmed in London. Oli says, “Dealing with issues such as public filming can be challenging. There’s a fine line between legal filming and voyeurism. And that makes it all the more important to talk about. In an age where we are all constantly on camera and on video, where does the line lie? That was the question that came from this video.”
The full spectrum of ‘news’
As well as the City News exclusives, we’ve certainly had some fun exploring the full spectrum of ‘news’. We’ve had digital specials including Christmas, Remembrance Day, St Patrick’s Day, and Mother’s Day. And did you know it could be cheaper to fly to Alicante for Valentine’s Day than organising a night out in London? You heard it here first!
We’ve also had plenty of taste tests from shawarma (“mmh shawarma”) to beer to full English (and Welsh) breakfasts. Our main takeaway – journalists love to eat!
Tabloid week allowed our students to get creative, and we didn’t disappoint. Lizzie Rix’s article ‘No Sex and the City’, which explored London’s apparent low sex drive, attracted more views than the City News homepage – no easy feat! Lizzie says she really enjoyed putting her lifestyle specialism to use in tabloid week. She says, “It was really fun to try something different.”
The “Coat of Shagging” crisis caught everyone’s attention during Tabloid Week
From weeing on the Tube to Peter Mandelson’s late-night antics, Jessica Rolfe and Matthew Hayhurst explored how p**s can actually be a news story, without taking it. We’ve even shown you where you can go in a capital with no toilets.
And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also had the odd Olympian pop by for an interview. Thanks to Eddie the Eagle, new friend of City News.
But what’s the most important thing we’ve learnt? CITY NEWS DIGITAL DOESN’T HAVE ACCESS TO PA! Yeah, that one took a while to digest. Oh, and it turns out City News is a hit in Italy thanks to the work of Ludovica Cerci.
In all seriousness, what a year it’s been. Even when our students flirted with the ridiculous, the stories were always underpinned by strong journalism. Students have shown their hunch for London stories and executed them with an understanding of what our ever-growing digital audience wants to see. The future is bright for digital journalism, and it’ll be exciting to see where this year’s cohort ends up.
That’s a wrap on City News digital for now. We’ll see you next year!
More than 330,000 people across the UK sought support from the Stop It Now helpline in 2025 over concerns about their own or someone else’s online sexual behaviour towards children, according to new charity data. The anonymous service says contacts by phone, email and webchat rose significantly over the year.
