About

What is the all new Totnes Pulse about?

Totnes Pulse has been around for several years as an independent journal supporting the local community to improve communication between everyone in the town. It has always been privately funded by Mark El-Kadhi and Peter Shearn.

More recently many things have changed; There is an alarming rise in dis-information and an almost total lack of local scrutiny on people and institutions that have power over us.

To address this, The Totnes Pulse has been formalised into a Community Interest Company (CIC). The core principles are seeking the truth, scientific and independent facts, upholding the principles of democracy, and giving voice and agency to the community through a journal that offers a truly independent position with both professional reporting and what is known as “Citizen Journalism”.

We aim to be inclusive and work to bring the community together.

Are we politically biased?

Totnes Pulse is party neutral, and will pursue the facts wherever they take us. Care will be taken to ensure genuine balance is achieved in terms of prominence of viewpoint across Totnes and region. For example, our Totnes MP, Anthony Mangnall, has many media outlets in print and online where his press releases are published, seemingly without question.

Totnes Pulse will always be interested in talking to our MP as our elected representative to Parliament, but this must be done within the realms of an impartial interview and not part of party political agendas or advertorial. We should also hear from other representatives of the region.

Everyone has a voice regardless of power or influence and everyone has a right to reply.

Are we going to be boring?

We bloody hope not!

We intend to be entertaining as well as informative. There are to be opinion pieces, short stories, reviews and games. The events page will be regularly updated – the amount of happenings that go on around here is truly amazing considering we’re such a small town. We have culture in spades – just look at all those events on the right hand side! But that’s not ALL the events by any measure – check the full listings from the link in the menu above.

Who does all this?

Well to be honest – we want this to be you! We have approached groups and individuals for input and we think we’ve got off to a great new start but we don’t know everyone, so please come to us with your ideas, suggestions and writing.

Post on our FaceBook Page, Instagram, X (formally Twitter) or write to info@totnespulse.co.uk – we really do want to hear from you.

Who finances us?

At the time of writing, absolutely no-one! We’re doing this because we believe in it and the need to inform. If you would like to support us, we will fawn over you until you blush. In the meantime, we are in the process of sourcing grants and experimenting with advertising but rest assured, our editorial will not be influenced by money.

Are we responsible people?

Good question. We will certainly do our best to be and to that end we have a complaints process and we are governed by the impress media regulator.