Are location apps useful for journalists?

Foursquare. Gowalla. And now Facebook Places (although at the moment this is only available if you’re an American). Location apps for mobile phones seem to be the ‘in-thing’ on the web at the moment but is there any use to journalists in them?

Twitter clearly has a use as it can help us to find out where news is breaking, connect with contacts and promote our content. The same goes for Facebook, although that seems most useful for building communities around your fan pages of your media brand.

I recently tried out Foursquare for two months and could find absolutely no use for it. It was buggy and didn’t seem to get on with my laptop. I checked in at a few places and became the mayor of my local swimming pool (yay!) and synced up my account with my Twitter. However, I found it annoying. I often forgot to check in at places or when I checked in I had absolutely nothing interesting to say. Likewise I tried out the screen where my friends were checking-in. Cool. But again no use. Read the rest of this entry »

Advice for student media editors

It’s been three years since I was editor of the student media at the University of Central Lancashire. Blearly eyed, cold pizza and a whole lot of fun is how I remember it – but I thought I’d offer some advice for all those about to begin what will be one of the best year’s of their lives.

Being in charge of the student media is a tough role. You will be working for an average of £1.50 an hour for all the hours you do, you’ll never really be able to switch off but you will sit back one day and go ‘Shit. Yeah. That was good.’

So, here we go, here’s my far from definite guide for how to have a good year running your student media (this is general advice covering radio, newspaper, TV and online). Read the rest of this entry »

Making the headlines

It was quite a week last week. Normally I’m writing the news but I found myself getting some surprising recognition for what I do (report on stuff, put it on the web and tell people about it).

Paul Bradshaw profiled me and my experiences as part of his ‘New Online Journalists’ series and I got a very complimentary comment from Duncan Higgitt who runs WalesHome about what I’m doing at Media Wales.

Then I was featured on the journalism.co.uk ‘J-List’. People nominate journalists who are out there doing it and innovating. I was chuffed to be featured and it’ll definitely be the only time I’m alongside Ian Hislop! Thanks to whoever nominated me.

The Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog ring has re-started, so I’ll be imparting some journalism related blogging over there. It’s well worth checking out and seeing what the young minds in journalism are saying.

I’ve also been interviewed recently on the World Update show on the BBC World Service about local journalism and hyperlocal websites, skip to 34 minutes to hear it.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has ever helped me out, trained me, encouraged me and worked with me. Now, back to doing journalism…

Hacks and hackers day: Using data to track Bobbies on the Beat

Got up ridiculously early on Friday 16th July to head up the motorways, with Joni Alexander in tow, to take part in the ScraperWiki Hacks and Hackers event in Liverpool.

Despite feeling as though we’d stumbled into the middle of a Liverpool Daily Post & Echo school outing, we soon found ourselves immersed in trying to use data to tell a story and do something useful with it.

Media organisations have access to, possess and make use of a lot of data. But how much they make use of it, is limited. The Guardian is certainly leading the way with the DataBlog, to give you the numbers behind the headlines but particularly in regional and local journalism there isn’t a lot of spewing out of data. That’s mainly because there just aren’t the resources or the time. Read the rest of this entry »

Council documents tell stories, not just Freedom of Information requests

The Freedom of Information Act was great for journalism, opening up a world of information on public authorities and definitely very useful when it comes to squirreling away stories (getting stories ready ahead of a holiday period such as Christmas).

While I don’t dispute the great stories that come from FOI requests, just see David Higgerson’s weekly round-up ‘FOI Friday’ for some superb stories across the UK media, it’s worth remembering what can come from sifting through council documents that often contain data as controversial as that in FOI requests – it’s just not as straight forward to find.

There’s a few ways you can find stories from council documents:

- Scrutiny committee papers

- Executive business meetings

- Councillor’s questions Read the rest of this entry »

Bullshit: Why you need to be covering council meetings

Council proceedings are not always the most exciting of meetings. Operational plans, bar charts and lots of polite beating around the bush. But sometimes, just sometimes, you’ll get a cracker like the one below. Remember, the Council is not just a faceless organisation – it has elected members and sometimes they will speak their minds. If you’re not there you can be sure the official minutes won’t make a note of it. But maybe what I’ve just said is complete and utter bullshit.

Here’s the full story as the former Lord Mayor cranks up the heat on supermarket giant Sainsbury’s

Got any Council meeting crackers? What is the juiciest economic and culture scrutiny committee you’ve covered? Let me know below.

Using Google maps to make council stories more interesting

Reporting on local councils can be a dry business, propping open your eyes and sinking yet another coffee during an Economic & Culture Scrutiny Committee is not the most exciting part of being a reporter – but it’s necessary. Journalists need to be holding local council’s to account and being at planning, licensing and other meetings is part of the job.

However, the stories about a new block of flats or a new air quality management area aren’t always the most exciting. So, how do you spice them up a little? The web allows us to quickly and easily add maps into our stories to give a sense of scale for readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Dealing with the deluge

I was recently away from work for a few days, some lieu days needed taking (use them or lose them as they say) and the combination of a Bank Holiday and the chance to visit the girlfriend back up in the North of England was too good a chance to miss.

So, I returned to my desk the other day and found an over-flowing inbox, many missed calls, voicemail messages, twitter messages, an RSS reader full to the brim. I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all.

I’m a pretty organised person, I use Remember The Milk for my tasks, I’m good at responding to emails and phone calls and I’m generally good at not forgetting stuff. But how do journalists deal with the information overload? How can we sift through everything when we come back? Especially when your role is as someone in the community that people want to speak to.

This post from Chris Brogan, ‘Your Blog Is Not Your Job‘ made me think, with the advent of social media and easy communication tools – it seems to be becoming even harder for a journalist to take a break.

What tips have you got for coming back off holiday and dealing with the deluge? How do you sift through everything and decide what to do first?

Image credit to dylanroscover

What happens to your hyperlocal blog if you move away?

That’s the question I posed in a guest post over on Hyperlocalblogger.com. Matt very kindly allowed me to explore the subject as I looked at what I’d done with Blog Preston when I moved away. Here’s an excerpt:

Hyperlocal blogs are all about location and are generally run by people who live in the area they seek to serve. But what happens when you’ve built up a local blog and move away from the area?

I don’t think many of us would stay in an area just to keep up a local blog. We have relationships, job opportunities or other reasons for moving to pastures new. Building up a hyperlocal site takes time and dedication; you build a community around your content and, to a certain extent, yourself, but what if you’re not there?

To read the full post head on over to HyperlocalBlogger.com

Using Twitter at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival

Last month I volunteered at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival. It was the first year it had been held, it was in the middle of nowhere, but it was a cracking idea. Put a load of great comedians in a small Welsh town and let the madness unfold – plus a fair amount of laughter.

I volunteered to help with press & marketing for the event. With it being voluntary, we had people, passion and a bit of time. But zero cash. What could we do? Enter stage right – social media.

Twitter has been invaluable as we were able to build a following relatively quickly, make lists of people involved in the festival and performing at it. Plus use the location based functionality of Twitter to find nearby people who were on the service and might be interested.

The real benefit of Twitter was felt during the event itself. We had the official Mach Comedy Fest account under the stewardship of the brilliant Beth Charlesworth (of A Little Bird Told Me), tweeting updates, changes to event times, photos from events. I was tweeting in with updates from my personal account and we had the hashtag #machfest buzzing with tweets from comedians and fans alike.

So, why bother tweeting during the festival? Surely we were too busy running around like mad people trying to make sure everything was done. Yes, we were running around but also we wanted to show people who hadn’t come, or who on the Friday night were thinking of coming that they were missing out. Twitter allows people to follow and stake out the action – and it might just sway them to dive in and get involved.

Machynlleth Comedy Festival was great, and I’ve no doubt that Twitter helped make it that little bit more social and great.

How have you used Twitter for festivals/events? How did you find it? Did people take to using the hashtag? I’d be interested to know your thoughts in the comments below.

Image credit to Ed Moore