[9] He became frustrated that community articles were rarely accepted by publications, especially when critical of their sponsors; he experienced this particularly when attempting write about potential negative impacts of the 2002 Commonwealth Games on its host city of Manchester.

[8] Speed had previously worked as a photojournalist and on community media projects, and was approached by Graham Cooper, a youth worker in a residential regeneration area, to help set up a local paper written by and for Salford people.

It also featured local history pieces, sports reporting, and ran interviews with celebrities from the area, including Christopher Eccleston, Shaun Ryder,[citation needed] and John Cooper Clarke.

[7] In its first issue it reported on the Lowry Centre, a publicly funded arts venue which had opened six years earlier, promising to ensure it was welcoming to the community.

[7] It published a photo comic of an experiment in which a reporter photographed a group of young people as they entered the building, capturing how they were quickly ejected.

[8] In August 2009 it campaigned alongside the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society (TACS) and local residents to save The Tree of Knowledge, an Alan Boyson mural at Salford University that was to be demolished, resulting in the work being protected with a grade II listed status.

[2] The Salford Star ran a summer spin-off youth magazines, in which children aged eight to 14 participated in journalistic activities such as holding their own press conferences.