The Community Newswire, the Home Office-funded partnership between the Media Trust and the Press Association, has put out its 5,000th story following its launch in July last year.
The service reached the milestone with an article on the launch of The Traveller Project, an initiative in south-east England to fight prejudice against gypsies and travellers.
Jake Bowers (pictured with Newswire manager Dominic O’Reilly), the subject of the article and a gypsy himself, said: "Our community has few resources with which to get its message out and the Community Newswire is an invaluable partner.
"Gypsy groups across Britain use the service because, when our message is professionally packaged through the Community Newswire, it gets coverage we could never receive on our own."
Home Office funding ensures that there is no charge for community groups to file stories and that every article appears on the Community Newswire website and the PA’s Mediapoint site.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke congratulated the Community Newswire, describing it as an "invaluable service for charities, voluntary organisations and community groups that currently have little or no contact with the media".
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