My new year’s resolution is to write a weekly/fortnightly/ semi regular opinion column about Chester issues. Welcome to the series premiere.

Hopefully I’ll do better with this simple goal compared to last year’s mixed resolution success rate. I completed the Chester in Lego move, but failed to a) start work on my book b)take part in a parade and c) host a 10th anniversary party. 

The book will have to wait but writing a regular opinion piece feels like a decent stop gap until I get my act together. A column like this was also in the works for the abandoned Chester Now project of 2022. Offering up an alternative and collaborative local news source seemed to be what Chester “needed” at the time, but the stars didn’t align to make it happen. I carried on doing my own thing presenting news that was released to me via official sources supplemented with my own interviews and Chester thoughts. However despite ten years in the blogging world and achieving a certain degree of legitimacy , I failed to get on the police media list, or the university and no doubt the twitter name puts some people off. But it’s too late to change the direction of the monster now. 

There’s much in Chester that doesn’t get reported on these days. I’m not slighting local media here, I’m well aware of the restrictions they operate under. Times aren’t what they were , when I could spend an hour chatting in the Chester Standard office on Watergate street ( like most places it’s now a bar). In 2014 a visit to the Chester Chronicle office was a fun escapade, now the remaining staff are all working from home. In recent memory the ( now dead) Chester Leader offered opinion columns as did the Chester Chronicle. These days perhaps everyone is writing their own daily opinion column / rant and writers are better off employed as influencers or tik tok stars? A lot of “news” coverage is going to end up being “written”by AI for sure.

Pre pandemic Chester discourse was boosted by publications like Tortoise , Amble and We are Chester. I did attempt to recruit a team myself and despite some great contributions to the blog over the years, you’ll struggle to find people that want to write for free. In a world where people get the vast majority of news for free , how do people see this evolving and what would they like from news organisations in the years to come?

Online coverage designed to gain hits can often seem irrelevant and at the same time having a reasonable fact based discussion is often elusive. Try having a discussion on one of the facebook groups and you’ll know how pointless it often seems. I like to think I’ve made a small impact just by repeating “the council don’t set business rates” about a thousand times in the last decade.

I’m also hoping to do more interviews this year, so if anyone knows someone worthy let me know. I’ve had a few ideas suggested to me so far. If nothing else it’s going to be good therapy in between whatever the big happenings of the coming year will be. 

Thanks for reading.