Hyperlocal is a fashionable term often used in 21st century journalism to refer to a type of community news
coverage that limits its scope to a welldefined, small piece of real estate or a very narrow interest group.
Hyperlocal is a fashionable term often used in 21st century journalism to refer to a type of community news
coverage that limits its scope to a welldefined, small piece of real estate or a very narrow interest group.
Sometimes it is described as taking local coverage to the limit. Last Friday we covered an incident in Extension 9 that suggests that the municipality could learn something about the value of staying hyper local.
Members of the local community around the as yet nameless hall in Extension 9 were livid because their interests had not been given priority in the official opening ceremony.
The hall, which can be seen in the background of our front page photograph, is reputedly state-of-the-art and was built specifically at the request of the local community.
We could therefore argue that the municipality was being highly responsive to community needs. However once the hall had been built, it appears that the municipal officials did not consider the people in the immediate vicinity for employment opportunities.
They also ignored traditional sensitivities concerning the cow that was to be slaughtered to mark the occasion.
The modern hall itself looks fantastic and might be one of the biggest in the township, but it is not clear why the Sakhuluntu township dancers are finding it so difficult to get permission to use the hall during the National Arts Festival.
The group of more than thirty children currently operates out of a single RDP house; surely it would make sense to allow them to use some of the hall’s facilities?
The opening of the hall has been delayed indefinitely, but it appears that City Hall officials have learnt their lesson and will in future take the interests of the hyperlocal community on board.
After all, a community hall is the focal point of everyone who lives within a few hundred metres. Grocott’s Mail works with citizen journalists to find the hyperlocal stories, and sometimes we put them onto our front page.
