Ruth Addicott talks to journalists about their lives and work in Norwich


Norwich W


hen Norwich-based journalist Rob Setchell met 101-year-old war veteran John Lister in 2020, Lister told him about his loneliness after losing his wife of 70 years to Covid. Setchell was covering the story for ITV


News Anglia and, afterwards, put an appeal online for people to send Lister a Christmas card. It went viral and almost 20,000 cards and presents from as far as Australia turned up at Lister’s home. “John’s carers said he would stay up late reading his cards


and that, when he died a few months later, he knew people cared about him,” says Setchell. Setchell has covered hundreds of stories over the years, but


Lister’s story not only stayed with him but also showed the impact that local news still has. Setchell moved to Norwich 10 years ago and, like many


journalists, ended up staying. “It’s a fantastic place to be a journalist,” he says. “Norfolk is jam-packed with colourful characters, beautiful locations and interesting stories. “If you want the buzz of a lively city, it’s on your doorstep,


but, if you want the peace of the coast and countryside, it’s a short drive away.”


Once the second largest city in the UK, Norwich has suffered cutbacks like everywhere else but remains a main base for media with two daily newspapers, major broadcasters, B2B publishers and a rising number of freelances. ITV Anglia, BBC Look East and BBC Radio Norfolk are based there. Commercial radio stations Heart (Global) and Greatest Hits Radio (Bauer) have newsgathering opportunities, and


Future Radio, run by volunteers, is one of the longest-running community radio stations in the UK. Jenny Kirk is a reporter, producer and presenter for BBC Look East which covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. She has lived in Norwich 18 years and says it’s a great patch


to cover: “All life is here. There are rural and coastal stories, inner-city issues, social deprivation and extreme wealth, and it’s a centre of excellence for academia, research and science.” One of the big stories recently has been the crumbling cliffs on the Norfolk coast. Kirk was filming in Hemsby in March as people’s houses were being demolished – a clip she posted on Twitter had more than 5,000 views. Norwich has two daily newspapers, the Eastern Daily Press


(www.edp24.co.uk), founded in 1870 – once England’s biggest-selling regional morning paper – and the Norwich Evening News (www.eveningnews24.co.uk), founded in 1882. They cover Norfolk, northern parts of Suffolk and east Cambridgeshire and are owned by Newsquest, following its acquisition of Archant in 2022. Staff at the EDP and Norwich Evening News had been based


at their historic headquarters in Prospect House since the late 1960s, but the building was sold to an insurance company in 2019 and most of the reporters now work from home. The city is also a major base for B2B publishing. BizClik


(which claims to be ‘one of the UK’s fastest-growing digital media companies’), Finelight Media, Littlegate Publishing and Outlook Publishing produce a range of national and international magazines and all have headquarters in Norwich. Phoebe Harper moved to the city as a student with no


intention of working in B2B journalism but found it a good way to get experience. She is now editorial director at Outlook Publishing. “Norwich has a lot of opportunities in this field,” she says. “Since I started work here two and a half years ago, the editorial team, which I oversee, has tripled in size and the


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