North Edinburgh News: The Community Paper That Refused to Disappear
North Edinburgh News, known to its readers as the NEN, is a community news outlet serving the neighbourhoods of north Edinburgh, Scotland, online at nen.press. Its story is unusual in British local media. The NEN began as a printed community newspaper run by volunteers, survived for more than three decades in print, faced closure when its public funding ended, lost its original website and its office, and yet continued — reinvented as a blog that, by its own account, publishes ten to twelve posts a day and has built an archive of more than 38,000 posts.
That survival matters because the NEN was never a commercial freesheet chasing advertising. It was set up to serve a specific community, to highlight positive achievements in an area that its editor said faced quite a few problems, and to give local campaigns a profile they might not otherwise have received. The online NEN that exists today is the direct continuation of that project, in a different form.
Overview
The NEN describes itself, in the words of its first blog post in 2011, as a local community paper serving the North Edinburgh community. The print paper was monthly and free. In 2010, journalism trade site Hold the Front Page reported that it printed 14,500 copies each month, distributed to homes and to buildings such as community centres and schools, and that it had an estimated readership of 35,000. Those figures describe a genuinely neighbourhood-scale publication: not a city-wide title, but one rooted in the estates, streets and community buildings of north Edinburgh.
Today the outlet lives at nen.press, organised by neighbourhood categories — its site carries sections for areas including Goldenacre, Comely Bank, Wardie and Clermiston — alongside general news coverage. The geographic focus has not changed. What has changed is the rhythm: instead of a monthly printed edition, the NEN now publishes throughout the day, every day.
History and Founding
The North Edinburgh News was set up by volunteers more than thirty years before its funding crisis became public in 2010 — placing its origins around the late 1970s. It was created to serve the local community and to highlight the positive achievements of the area. Editor Mary Burnside, who had been involved with the NEN since 1989 and was still its editor in 2010, described a strong campaigning community in which having its own newspaper had helped local campaigns receive a good profile and, in her judgement, had helped to change things for the better.
For most of its life the paper depended on public funding rather than on cover price or purely commercial income. It previously received council funding through the Edinburgh Community Newspapers Trust, but that support stopped several years before 2010. By then its funding came through the Fairer Scotland Fund — and that, too, was due to end the following year.
The Funding Crisis
In July 2010 Hold the Front Page reported that the newspaper could face closure unless it secured new sources of funding. Burnside said the NEN needed funds of at least £45,000 to keep going for another year, that staff had already had their hours and salaries cut because of reductions in funding, and that the staff and the voluntary board of directors would step up their campaign to save the paper. She also explained the tension at the heart of the project: advertising was doing reasonably well, but the team did not want to lose the ethos of the paper by becoming another freesheet filled with advertisements.
That ethos — a community paper first, and a business only in so far as it needed to survive — explains both the NEN's vulnerability and its durability. It had no large proprietor to absorb losses. What it had was a committed editor, a voluntary board and a readership that used it.
Going Online: The 2011 Blog
The NEN's first blog post was published in January 2011. It welcomed readers to the brand new NEN blog, explained that the newspaper had been serving north Edinburgh for over thirty years, and presented the blog — together with a new Facebook page and Twitter stream — as the paper's first move into social media. The aim, the post said, was to encourage more participation, questions and ideas from the community, online and offline.
Importantly, the blog was not initially a replacement for print. The paper already had a website where readers could find the latest printed edition; the blog was there to show the latest news about the area — and, candidly, to help the organisation cover the funding crisis it was facing. Readers were invited to contribute ideas for stories, comments, pictures and events. Participation was the model from the first day.
From Print to Digital-Only
The transition was not smooth. The NEN's website was deleted when funding ceased, though its social media presence continued on Twitter and Facebook. The printed paper also ended: a report on the site in the period after print ceased noted that the NEN had last appeared in print in June of that year and had remained alive through the online blog while decisions on the paper's future were made. There was, however, recognition from the city council. Edinburgh Council's Policy and Strategy Committee agreed that north Edinburgh would be one of three neighbourhoods — alongside Gorgie/Dalry and Craigmillar — selected to pilot community-based information initiatives under a £50,000 Contact in the Capital scheme, after the council scrapped its Outlook publication and looked for new ways of getting information into communities. The council's background papers described the NEN as a locally well-regarded newspaper and blog.
When the NEN office in Crewe Road North closed, much of the archive material was lost. Some of its picture library was salvaged and can now be found at granton:hub, in Madelvic House, where a volunteer archive team has also collated all the remaining hard copies of the North Edinburgh News newspaper.
Coverage and Content
The modern NEN publishes the kind of material a community paper has always carried, at digital speed: neighbourhood news organised by area, community notices, events, campaigns, and stories passed on from local schools, groups and organisations. Its own anniversary account says it publishes ten to twelve posts daily — a volume that reflects its function as a noticeboard as much as a newsroom. Community groups use it to reach neighbours; the site in turn invites contributions, listing community directory information for schools, groups and organisations and offering advertising for local services and events.
That blend is deliberate. In a community paper, a school event, a litter pick at Wardie Bay, a walking project or a restaurant offer sit alongside harder news because they are all part of the same local information ecosystem — the information residents actually need from a neighbourhood outlet.
Audience and Reach
The print NEN's audience was measured in copies and readership: 14,500 copies and an estimated 35,000 readers in 2010. The digital audience is smaller in raw terms but, by the blog's own account, growing. The NEN says 2025 was the blog's busiest ever year, with 36,000 visitors, and that it has published more than 38,000 posts, all of which remain accessible online. Perhaps most striking is the consistency: the anniversary post recorded a run of publishing on 2,749 consecutive days — more than seven and a half years without a missed day.
For a volunteer-rooted community outlet that lost its funding, its website and its office, that record is the clearest evidence of what the NEN has become: not a large news organisation, but a persistent one.
Editorial Voice
The NEN's voice is that of the community paper it always was: local first, campaigning where its community campaigns, and protective of the area's positive achievements as well as its problems. Mary Burnside's comments in 2010 capture it — the paper existed so that a strong campaigning community could get a profile for its campaigns, and so that good things happening in north Edinburgh were recorded as faithfully as difficulties. The blog's anniversary writing carries the same tone: part news report, part community record, explicitly framing the blog and the salvaged physical archive together as the place to find the community's rich history.
People and Organisation
The verified human story of the NEN is largely one of long service. Mary Burnside was involved from 1989 and edited the paper through its funding crisis, speaking publicly for it in 2010. Around her were paid staff whose hours were cut as funding fell, and a voluntary board of directors who campaigned to save the title. In its digital era, the work is sustained by contributors from the community itself and by the volunteer archive team at granton:hub who preserved what survived of the print era. The NEN has never presented itself as a personality-led outlet; its byline, in effect, is north Edinburgh.
Recent Developments
The most recent verified milestone is the blog's fifteenth anniversary, marked on nen.press in 2026 with the statistics quoted above: the busiest year yet in 2025, more than 38,000 posts, and an unbroken daily publishing run approaching eight years. The physical archive at Madelvic House and the digital archive online now complement each other — the remaining hard copies and salvaged pictures on one side, and a searchable, still-growing daily record on the other. For a newspaper that in 2010 needed £45,000 it did not have to survive another year, survival on these terms is itself the story.
