A wall of Private Eye front covers. Editor Ian Hislop has picked his favourite one from each year of publication

The Friday Late event celebrated independent publishing, everything from zines, to tumblrs and typography.

The Victoria & Albert Museum threw open its doors until 10pm for amongst other things an analog tumblr, arty readings and the opportunity to create your own magazine.

Placing my 'thumbs up' in the analog tumblr. This was at the entrance to the event and allowed you to vote for pieces of typography you'd seen around the museum, or submit your own via your phone that you'd seen.

But the set piece, in my eyes, was a room dedicated to 50 years of Private Eye.

The magazine, currently edited by Ian Hislop, has been poking fun at the aristocracy and political classes for 50 years now and so the V&A felt it was time to recognise how the design of the magazine and the cartoons within it had played a major part in its success.

I took part in a tour around the exhibition with Elizabeth James who helped put the displays together. She was very engaging, explaining to everyone just how important the magazine is for cartoonists to get their work out there.

The cartoons on display include the work of Willie Rushton, Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe.

A cartoon from a recent Private Eye taking on the government on graduate unemployment and the new housing strategy

The Private Eye exhibition perhaps best sums up why it’s important to have such a free and independent media in this country today, poking into the corners of life where others would not dare.

The wall of front covers in the photo at the top of this post best sums up the impact the magazine can have, with its admittedly low-tech solution to publishing.

And there’s a good point. Often we’re focused on the new technology, the new way of doing something, when actually its about harnessing the technology to do something you want to do. As Elizabeth pointed out during the tour perhaps it is The Eye’s low-tech and low-production values which perhaps make it even more readable and has become an important part of its brand? It’s not over-designed and relies on very simple display methods, like cartoons or speech bubbles, to put across its witty message.

I would strongly recommend getting along to the V&A to check out the glorious 50 years on display, including the fascinating libel section with letters from The Eye’s lawyers refuting claims.

It runs until 8th January 2012 in Room 17a and 18a at the museum. More details on the V&A website.

It’s partly in response to my new role at Trinity Mirror’s digital regional team. I wanted a place to showcase some of the great multimedia reporting which goes on throughout the regions in the UK, so it’ll be a collection of videos, slideshows and other great multimedia that is happening across the UK.

It’s hosted on tumblr and you can view it here, with the latest posts being about the most watched Trinity Mirror Regional videos during the England riots. All feedback is welcomed.

Updated: Paul Bradshaw has blogged a great set of ideas and tips for live blogging, he even referenced this post. Please do check it out for even more ideas.

Last week we live-blogged the Assembly election in Wales and the AV Referendum results in Wales – for nearly 24 hours.

Live-blogging is becoming an accepted part of the online journalism toolkit, with the likes of Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian being recognised for his political live-blogging, sports journalism embracing the concept for updates from matches – in particular in cricket and the Test Match Special Team for the recent Ashes series in Australia, and local media groups committing to provide live coverage of council meetings.

I thought I’d explore in this post what makes a good live-blog and some hints and tips for making a good one.

Make sure it’s live

Not everything requires a live-blog. Think carefully before unleashing the beast – live coverage is resource intensive, and may not generate as much traffic as you would like. If it’s live, make sure it’s worth it. The kind of events which lend themselves to live coverage are elections, sports matches, protests and some council meetings. The key thing to remember is – once you start, you can’t stop. You must be committed to following the events through. The Guardian April fool was a good example of ‘live-blogging’ being overdone – and indeed the media group have been accused of ‘overdoing’ the live-blogging genre.

Be prepared

If you’re going to live-blog, research your topic. I usually make a spreadsheet or a notepad doc with a load of related links in it. Often live events will have lulls e.g. during election night there was a period with no results. With your list of links at the ready you can drop interesting content related to the event into the coverage to fill the gaps.

Encourage interaction

The comments are the lifeblood of the coverage. Live-blogging sports games is great fan as the banter with the fans is great – even when you’re an Englishmen like me and getting ripped to shreds by Cardiff City fans! But interact with the comments, answer questions, and if you don’t know, at least acknowledge the comments and example why you can’t do it e.g. “I’ll try and find out after the game”. Sometimes the comments will take the live-blog in a new direction.

Make use of all content avenues

It’s not just about text. Live-blogs are a great way to bring in photos (of key moments), audio (with key people) and video (of key moments). On our election blog we had phone interviews with politicians, the odd photo from the counts and links to video we’d shot earlier in the day.

Involve the newsroom

One person tapping away at a keyboard isn’t much fun, and it’s not much fun for the readers. For our election coverage we had correspondents at election counts and pulled in their tweets, for Cardiff City games we’ll pull in some of our football pundits. Readers like to hear a range of views and opinions, and it also makes it a fun experience for more of the newsroom.

The live-blog is the first draft

Often content from the live-blog can be re-published, as a timeline panel in the next day’s paper with when key events happened. Some of the best comments and tweets in the live blog could make a ‘best bits’ article. Reporters can file into the live-blog and then use it to piece together what happened, rehashing versions of their story into the finished article. Don’t forget the live-blog, if you’re using software like CoverItLive can be embedded in related articles with the ‘replay’ action. We’ve found this is really popular in sports stories where readers can replay what happened during the game, and read all the comments.

Recap often

People join live-blogs at different stages. The hardcore will be there from the beginning, but as with TV coverage, people switch on at the middle and end. Make sure you’re regularly recapping on what has happened, this will also help you to get a handle on what has been happening and give you a breather. Live-blogs are intense work!

Use all the gimmicks

On the CoverItLive software you have scoreboards, goalflashes and polls. Use all these to break up the live-blog and keep the audience engaged. Run regular polls on what might happen next, who will score first and towards the end of the event say for example whether the manager should lose their job, or who the man of the match is.

Promote the live-blog early

Some live-blogs need to happen at the flick of a switch, but others are around set events such as sports matches or elections. Ensure the live-blog is well promoted and allow people the chance to register for an email reminder when it’s starting. This will ensure you start with a decent audience.

Live-blogs are an important part of the online journalism offering, and allow traditional print media the chance to feel like broadcasters for a short period – without the faffing about with expensive equipment.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list, so I’d like to know below in the comments your tips for running a live-blog. If you’re a reader of live-blogs, what do you like/dislike about them? What’s the best live-blog you’ve read or been a part in? Do the media over-use them? Let me know all your views in the comments below

Image credit to Sue Richards

I used to live in the centre of Cardiff, so I set up a blog covering goings on in the centre. I don’t live in the centre anymore, only work there, and I don’t have time to keep the blog going.

So, I’d like to find it a new home. There’s a tumblr account set up, an email address and a twitter feed all sorted. It just needs a loving owner to kick it into life and keep posting.

If you’re interested in taking the blog on email me at edward_walker86@hotmail.co.uk. Thanks!

Update: The lovely Nicola Paterson is going to be taking over the city centre blog. She’s on twitter @miradouglas – so give her a follow.

Image credit to Jon Candy

Having a strong set of blogs on a media website is essential these days for being a successful one. It’s ticking those boxes of the ‘converged newsroom’ when you’ve got your reporters blogging alongside the stories they are producing – using their blogs as a way to expand on their areas of expertise. It’s also a good way of a reporter expanding on area they are passionate about.

There are numerous types of different software out there – from in-house solutions to Moveable Type – and each one has its advantages/disadvantages. Some of the biggest barriers I’ve found in discussing blogging with reporters are:

• finding the blogging software clunky to use, which puts them off because they think it’s going to take ages
• they still want to write 300-400 words when sometimes just 50 will do

I’ve recently been experimenting with Tumblr as a blogging platform. I love this blog (the one you’re reading now) and using the hosted wordpress solution – but I wanted a place to expand on my thoughts and inspired by the ever excellent Dave Lee I saw Tumblr as a way of doing that.

I wanted to keep this blog about journalism and communications but have a ‘dumping ground’ for interesting things that caught my eye, things I experienced and wanted to share. I didn’t want to mix the two.

Twitter is a good way of sharing, but sometimes you need more than 140 characters to fully get your point across.

Tumblr is perfect. Its interface is quick and easy to use – want to post a photo? Just hit the photo button. You don’t even need to have your own image, just shove a URL in from Flickr and it’ll scrape a photo to go on (just make sure you provide a click-through link to avoid rights issues). Same with videos. Same with just a link.

I like the way it’s easy to customise your layout, colour scheme and give your blog a more personal feel – while still not making it inaccessible and hard to read.

So, in busy newsrooms across the country, if Tumblr was installed as the blogging engine would we see better responses and take up? I believe so, especially on the features desks. Think about how many bands, clothes, styles, tid-bits come across the desks of feature writers in regional papers. Want a dumping ground to share your highlights? Tumblr would be perfect. That cool new band you heard the other night, a quick link to their Myspace and your content creation is done.

As John Rostron, who runs the Swn Festival in Cardiff, said to me once: “I always used to pick up the Echo, once my parents had finished with it, to find out about local bands.” Well, with less people’s parents taking a local paper, we need to make sure we can still offer the place to signpost people to what’s good in their local area.

Tumblr also has the social networking element of being able to follow someone, like a post etc. My biggest criticism of Tumblr is that it doesn’t seem to allow comments on posts? Update: You can add comments, as pointed out below in the comments on this post, by integrating DisQus. Just register with DisQus, add your site, and away you go.

Image credit to buyalex

What’s your experience with Tumblr as a blogging tool? Do you use it? Did you use it and not like it? Let me know in the comments below

It’s not easy running a local site by yourself, constantly producing reports on the village council or covering the local town’s football club as it battles yet another relegation threat.

However, there’s a quick way to relieve yourself of some of the trials and tribulations and also add a whole raft of different voices to your site and really help live up to the tag “voice of your community”.

Get other people to post on your site. It’s an old trick newspapers have been doing for years, let the local MP sound off about something or give the ex-football manager a column to vent his spleen. Columnists are often why people buy their Sunday paper, and there’s no reason why your local site can’t steal a trick or two. Here’s some tips on recruiting and keeping guest bloggers.

The types of guest post

I’d divide the guest posting into three categories. The expert. The passionate campaigner. Them doing stuff for you.

The expert – writing about stuff you don’t really know about

Local history is a great example of this. If you’re covering a story about the old hospital that is being turned into flats and there’s a campaign group wanting to save it – see if they know about the history of the place. Maybe there’s a former doctor who was working there for 40 years and knows tonnes of stuff about the place, far more than the 100 words of quotes you’ve given him in the story. See if he’ll write a guest post about the history of the hospital. You’ll also be surprised what old pictures people will have and random facts as well, make sure you get those in the post.

The passionate/campaigner – the opinion bit

You’re working on a story about a playing field being sold off. The local community is “up in arms” and there’s a big campaign group meeting. Now is the time to offer your community blog up to their services, invite the leader of the campaign group to write a guest post. I find a good tip is to pose a question to them to peg the opinion piece to – in this case “Why should the playing fields be saved?”. Watch them fly and watch the comments roll in as those for/against come to your blog to give their views.

Them doing stuff for you – this covers things like reviews

You can’t be everywhere at once. And you need to have a life of some sort. Start getting guest contributors around different subject areas, for example someone might be really into the local music scene. Ask them to write about local gigs, or get the chairman of the local hockey club to submit a short write-up of the club’s latest game.

The technical stuff – length, submission

Try to keep guest posts to around 600 words. Anymore and people lose interest, any less and the writer struggles to get their point across.

If you’ve got WordPress or another content management blogging tool, create user accounts for them. So they can login themselves and post content. But, you can always take submissions via email and post it up for them.

Include a bio

People will start to learn who you are, but who is Mr Jones from the campaign group? Make sure you’re including a short bio about the person, either at the start of the guest post or the bottom. Include a photo of the guest poster as well if possible.

Encourage interaction

Ask the guest blogger if you can put their email address or link to their website at the bottom of the article. Also get them to come back to the article and respond to any comments, you’ll probably need to nudge them to do this. Tell them to share the article, if they have a Facebook account, an email list, whatever they have ask them to use it to spread the article out onto the web.

What’s in it for them?

Make sure you sell the benefits to them of guest posting. More exposure, chance to have their say, a link to their website, recruiting people to their cause, a chance to share their knowledge, improve their employability. Whatever is the right reason to tempt them, say it. Also, after a few weeks let them know how many people have looked at their article and this always gives them a lift.

Image credit to Heather Phillips

What are your tips for guest blogging? Have you guest blogged for a website? How did you find it? What would you do differently? Let me know in the comments blow

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…

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

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

Hyperlocal blogs vary enormously in terms of audience numbers. Some such as the Ventnor Blog on the Isle of Wight are long established and attract a huge audience while others are fledgling outfits that may only have readerships in their tens every day.

But getting beyond the Google Analytics is important, especially if anyone who runs a hyperlocal blog is thinking about making some money for it. With Blog Preston, the hyperlocal venture I setup in January 2009 to cover the Lancashire city of Preston, I wanted to find out a bit more about my audience.

We ran a survey and asked people what they thought about the blog, the content and got a big of demographic information from them. Here are the findings:

The age group – they aren’t young

The largest age of people reading Blog Preston was 36-50, with 37.% putting themselves in this category. No one over 51 was in our readership.

Where they lived – they are richer than most

We attract readers from opposite ends of Preston. The two wealthies suburbs, Fulwood and Penwortham featured as the most popular places for our readers to be from. These places are mainly affluent, middle class and have strong broadband penetration. They are also home to lots of ‘community minded’ people who are likely to look beyond the newspaper headlines. We do not attract readers from areas such as Ribbleton and Larches, the more socially deprived areas of the city.

What they liked reading about – events and the arts

It seems there is a big gap in events coverage in Preston, as that’s what people were coming to our site for. To find out what events were on, read reviews and get ideas for what to do in the city. Our coverage of the arts was also popular, covering music, comedy and other arts events that were happening. There was lots of love for our opinion articles, our readers liked to read informed articles from members of the community.

What they wanted more of – more of the same

As above, the things they liked reading about they wanted to see more of. So we know our core audience is happy and wants to see even more done on these areas.

Do we reflect the city in our content? Why yes, we do

This is what I’m most proud of. From starting up Blog Preston on the kitchen table all those months ago, we got 93% of our readers saying our content reflects the city of Preston. If you’re a hyperlocal blog and you’re not doing that you might as well pack up and go home!

Lessons learned

We need to hammer home our advantage on arts, events and opinion coverage and perhaps highlight this content so it’s easier to find for readers. Our success in the more affluent areas of Preston gives hope for attracting advertising but is also a double-edged sword as we should be attracting visitors from all over. To do this we need to cover local events in these areas, get contributors sending in articles and building relationships with people in those communities.

I’d encouraged other hyperlocal blogs to do a readership survey, it’s a great way of finding out whether you’re hitting the right notes with your content and also gets you underneath the website stats.

Have you done readership research for your hyperlocal blog? What did you find? How do you think we can expand our readership with Blog Preston? Any tips in the comments below would be appreciated.

Image credit to BillFromSpokane