I’ve got five seconds: This is a newspaper, believe it or not. A community paper. Well, technically a community media outlet. A community network. A caring communication nexus. See the ethics in our pledge below.
I’ve got five minutes: I hear the questions coming thick and fast.
Basically, we do local journalism that isn’t about click-bait, rage-bait*, or reprinting press releases word for word. We also aren’t owned by a national for-profit conglomerate (hello Hastings and St Leonards Observer), nor are we run by hobbyist retirees… yet.
I have the utmost respect for our colleagues at Hastings Independent Press and Hastings Online Times, but they know as well as I do that we can’t run a decent local news scene on retirement alone, not even with uni internships and the generosity of underpaid designers.
Nonetheless, I strongly recommend you use HIP and HOT alongside Hex to get a more complete picture of local affairs – they do a lot of work, sometimes very good work, for no money at all. Often while being criticised by fellow volunteers and the public at large. It can be an exhausting, thankless task. So make sure to use their output. You should probably even read that Get Hastings magazine. Why not? Heck, sometimes the Observer comes up with useful stories, though typically only when Huw Oxburgh is writing them.
Hex’s journalistic niche within this landscape is very much in our name. We like quirky, unholy, magical material. We also like longform investigation and personal reflection (that’s the “Examiner” bit). And we want to keep it all centred in Hastings, even if we do occasionally wander from this goodly ground.
“Yeah but… alright, but… where’s the paper?”
It’s on the way (please believe me!). Printing takes time and resources, and you’d be amazed at how many copies get lost between leaving the printer and reaching a reader’s hands. It’s just a placeholder right now, but the distribution list will be here. We have had six print runs so far, going from a protest leaflet to a broadside-like assault on the local plan, but it’s an easter egg hunt to find one. Look forward to Issue 7 (and beyond)!
“Promises, promises. What’s all this talk of ‘community’ then, what does it mean?”
Good question there reader I definitely haven’t invented to ask me questions. On a basic level, community is about people living together in equality, with understanding and with respect. Pretty simple, right?
Forget your Asda Community Champion and your Hastings Commons. This isn’t trying to sell you something. This is just us – Hastings residents – trying to share information and maybe some fun times with you – other Hastings residents. Also any of you East Sussex weirdos are welcome. And sure, any of you keyhole-peeping voyeurs from the rest of the internet. But we’re trying to talk about Hastings, for Hastings. Not out of some pseudo-nationalism based on Hastings, but out of a care for the people who live here.
I’ll admit, it’s easy to conjure with words like “community”, or “democracy”, or “freedom”, and use these things to justify their opposites. Plenty of people invoke great and simple ideals to justify complex exploitations. I’m not going to tell you that we have this thing cracked. I’m not going to tell your that we’re completely truthful or reliable. But we’re doing our best. Our pledge, to try and guarantee that, is written below. It’s a work in progress, like all things.
*Merlin, who’s writing this (hello!), does regularly forget himself and write a little too ‘polemically’. What can I say? I’m an emotional creature in a very unstable society. Also, blame me for our pledge being “positive” but also having five “anti” things in it.
Our pledge
Positive. Community is a positive movement. We will not attack, we will not revolt. We will build a better way to exist. We will replace violence. We will replace evil. We will not forego or ignore laws without good reason. Our methods are friendship, understanding, and respect. We will always give those who disagree with us, or who identify as our opponents, a right to reply.
Transparent. Community is not a secret, it does not hide, it involves trust, it involves understanding. We will make our decisions, meeting minutes and finances public and respond to any requests for information.
Personal. We are real people, we are not machines. Our writers and creators will speak as themselves, not as a disembodied voice pretending neutrality.
Scientific. Our method is scientific. We recognise our humanity, our emotion, our bias, but we build our reports based on careful investigation, cross-checked information, and fact. Where we find inaccuracies, we will correct them transparently.
Sociocratic. We are an egalitarian organisation. We want to maintain efficiency without losing transparency, communication and community. Our teams run autonomously and consensually, with an overall perspective, but without overall leadership.
Apolitical. We are not political. We will not be affiliated with political parties and will not endorse the practices of the national government. We believe in self-organised self-governance. We do not endorse revolutions. We live the way we would live.
Sustainable. We exist in community with the environment that sustains us. We will advocate and employ renewable energies, environmentally sustainable distribution and production, and a reduced human footprint on the natural world. We do not want to make ourselves extinct.
Anti-racist. Tolerance is not enough, we are anti-racist. We will expose and condemn racism where we find it. We will work to create spaces and dialogues in which all people can feel safe and equal, open to express themselves, to exist.
Anti-sexist. Tolerance is not enough, we are anti-sexist. We will expose and condemn sexism where we find it. We will work to create spaces and dialogues in which all people can feel safe and equal, open to express themselves, to exist.
Anti-capitalist.Tolerance is not enough, we are anti-capitalist. We will expose and condemn capitalist practices where we find them. We will work to extract ourselves and our communities from capitalist socio-economic dominion. Where participation in capitalist society is necessary, we will be ethical and transparent in our dealings.
Anti-populist. Appealing lies and false constructs have been used to placate massive populations for centuries. We will counter misinformation, we will be honest before we are popular, we will develop learning networks to enable people to teach themselves. We do not claim to be the teacher, we are the workshop, we are the library.
Queer. We believe in sexual freedom and progress beyond the limitations of gender. We will respectfully explore concepts of gender and challenge atavistic models of sexual and gender relation.
Anti-nationalist. The nation is a necessarily oppressive organisation, built on principles of hierarchy and subservience. While we will never condone or encourage the destruction of society and its contingent communities, we will work to reveal and unravel the trappings of nationalist organisation, which hinder society, community and social progress.