The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is taking community seriously with its latest hire

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has hired a community organiser, Kirsty Styles:

We see ourselves as serving both the journalists/members of our network and the disparate communities that they serve across the country. By bringing these two crucial parts together there can be better investigative storytelling on the ground and greater national reach.

Styles is a journalist with an impressive track record:

Kirsty worked as a technology journalist and economics podcaster in East London for five years, ending up as business to business (B2B) tech editor for the New Statesman.

This is a significant move. We’re seeing far too many moves away from the audience — the galley slave journalists of the big content sites, and the withdrawal of “local” journalists from the towns they actually cover, for example — so seeing someone committing to direct engagement with an audience and a set of journalists feels important. At a time when trust in journalists seems to be in something of an historic low, initiative like this — making journalists accessible again — should be a big part of our future.