The Local: it’s us against the titans
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The Local's staff - happy bunnies
But yesterday, when Medievärlden called to tell me The Local was nominated for their Digital Media of the Year prize, I was (to use a cricketing term) absolutely knocked for six, as were all my colleagues. Reader, I can assure you that in this case The Local certainly did not nominate itself.
Once we’d managed to stop ourselves running around screaming like momentarily deranged Beatles fans, our amazement was compounded when we found out that our co-nominees were DN.se (the website of Sweden’s largest quality daily Dagens Nyheter) and Dagen.se (the website of a well-known Christian newspaper).
To put it into context, Dagens Nyheter has a staff of 580 and Dagen has a staff of 60. The Local, on the other hand, has a full-time staff of just 11. That includes all editors, journalists, business developers, salespeople, IT developers and managers in Sweden AND Germany. Even when you add in our varied band of talented freelancers, we’re still nowhere near half the size of Dagen, let alone DN.
Not only are we smaller in many respects than our competitors – we are also much younger. We were founded in 2004; DN, by contrast, was founded in 1864; Dagen was founded in 1945 (although naturally their websites are rather younger than that). Yet despite being so young and having so few staff, we managed to reach 2.1 million unique visitors last month (of which 1.2 million were visiting the Swedish site).
It would, of course, be astonishing if we were to win the prize – the competition is tough, to say the least (I know I’m supposed to say this, but this time it just happens to be true).
But just getting nominated is a welcome pat on the back for us, and particularly for Paul O’Mahony, editor of thelocal.se, and our associate editor David Landes. They thoroughly deserve the recognition.
Moreover, the nomination is a nod to only to The Local, but also to our loyal readers – a new generation of diverse, mobile, internationally-minded people who want to get involved in the societies in which they live.
But perhaps the most important thing about this is that it will spur us on to keep improving what we do – and to continue developing our plans to take The Local to new places around Europe with renewed vigour.
Thanks for all your support!
James Savage
September 18th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Well done!
September 18th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Congratulations on your nomination! It is well deserved. I have been an online subscriber for several years and always appreciate your insightful and informative articles. Thank you!
September 19th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Congratulations, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Sweden. This is the best and only website that provides news from Sweden in english for the rest of the world. Thank you and keep up the good work.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Best wishes, I really appreciate all people those work for the local .se.
There are so many websites which provide us information about Sweden but the local.se gives us much more and up to dat. THE LOCAL.SE is most useful than others. If I divide in categories the local.se will be on NO.1. Thank you very much on your nomination.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Congratulations!!! I view your website on a daily basis to read the news about Sweden and sometimes Germany as well. Good luck I hope you win.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
You don’t need awards to validate your work. It will stand on its own merits.
Judging by the selling of Sex on todays, ‘thelocal.se’ web-site home-page, being 4 out of 22 pics, 2 of them to advertise Facebook and Twitter, bit o’ sport, The best new Home, and other irrelevant story’s comprising the remainder, whats the difeerence between you and the Mainstream Lie Machine, inteligent people will ask?
Check out Redice Creations website, they discuss topics the propoganda papers won’t touch.
Thats real News.
Investigate the Laws on Money and Law, discover how the system indoctronates Lawyers and Judges, to keep populations suppressed with the belief people need to work to earn a living, when nothing is further from the truth.
http://thinkfreeforums.org/index.php
The above link to a great source of material on Law and money, which apply’s world-wide.
Learn about Accepted For Value technology, and how you can pay any bill with just your signiture and no debt notes from the private Banksters who really control the world, including the IMF and the UN.
Find out who are the Secret share-holders of ‘the Bank of International Settlements’ (Switzerland) funding the IMF, keeping every Country (really Corporations) in involintary Servitude to the Fiat Money supply they create out of thin air.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 am
Well done ! I am a frequent traveller to Germany so The Local (Germany) is a must read, but the SE version has also become an equally important part of my daily readings. Keep up the good work. You cannot imagine that someone like me who lives on the other side of the world can know so much local knowledge about a country I have never visited.
Go for the win !
September 24th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Congratulations! My Fiance and I lived in Solna last winter so she could play Bandy with AIK. We came to love Sweden, and miss living their very much. The Local allows us to keep up with what’s going on in our adopted country. Thank you and keep up the good work!
September 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
James
Congratulations and thanks for keeping me up to date all these years.
/Declan
September 27th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
First of all, Congratulations! You deserve it!
I started to read you one year ago and I haven’t stopped since then. I really like how you “tell us” the news.
The Local is more than a newspaper!
Thank you for been there!