There was a rallying call at the International Journalism Festival yesterday for the media to report more on the goings on within social networks such as Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »
Imagine writing a story about a planning application to put a motorway through Sherwood Forest near Nottingham. You file your copy and stroll out of your media organisation office and head for home – a beer and takeaway pizza on the menu – as you approach your door, three men emerge from the shadows and beat you senseless, they hit you 54 times with a steel pipe and put you in a coma. Read the rest of this entry »
Part of a panel this morning at the International Journalism Festival on engaging communities in journalism which managed to tread its way through ‘bunga bunga parties’, paywalls and potholes. Read the rest of this entry »
Attended a session this afternoon at the International Journalism Festival on reporting on disasters, and how the media work with NGOs and the military in these areas. While it made me consider foreign reporting, it also raised questions about the use of user generated content (UGC). Read the rest of this entry »
We often see journalists on TV giving their opinion about this story and that, but when have you ever seen a crowd of young people queueing to see a journalist they consider a hero? Read the rest of this entry »
Two events happening shortly in Cardiff which look interesting and will hopefully ask questions about openess and transparency in both central and local government.
The first is the Senedd 2011 event. It’s a bit vague on what the discussion will actually be on – the general theme of the web and transparency and the Welsh Assembly. The panel has some people with a track record of lobbying and opening up debates on issues, so what they have to say will be interesting.
There’s more details about the event, which is free, on the Vote 2011 website.
Then the Talk About Local Unconference comes to town. An unconference is a cool format where instead of being shoe-horned into a set programme of workshops and seminars, the attendees decide them instead. So, if you’re interested in a certain topic – e.g. making local councils more transparent – you put a post-it up at the start and see if anyone else is interested. If they are, you get a session and people share their knowledge and thoughts.
I’ve been to a Talk About Local Unconference before, and wrote this report – featuring Staffordshire oatcakes – in 2009 about what I learned from it. If you run a hyperlocal, community or blogging site it’s a really useful event to attend and I know it’s given me a lot of ideas and enthusiasm for what we’ve been doing with Blog Preston.
You can find out more about the event in this post I did for yourCardiff and sign up for free on the #tal11 Eventbrite.
I’ll be tweeting from both events, so follow me on Twitter @ed_walker86 and the hashtags #senedd2011 and #tal11 for all the latest.
Image credit to Michael Gwyther-Jones, showing the Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay
Been to a couple of conference-type things this month to talk about what I do (being an all-round online journalist chap!). Thought I’d make some brief notes on them and share my presentations with you. Read the rest of this entry »
Les Cochrane, and me, chatting with Lichfield Blog at Talk About Local 09
Went down to Stoke-on-Trent yesterday for the Talk About Local unconference. It was a gathering of local and hyper-local bloggers, some community activists, people who run community websites and people who run tools that can help community websites.
There was a great mix of people. Immediately I identified a split between people like myself who had some journalism training and were setting up, or have set up, a community blog/website for their area to act as an alternative to the local media. Others had just set it up because they wanted something different.
An unconference is a great format. You arrive, eat some Staffordshire oatcakes (amazing) and put post-its on a board about sessions you’d either like to run or see be run. These sessions are then moved around, some are merged together until a session schedule becomes clear. There’s another board to put post-its about who you would like to meet at the event and another one to put URLs of your site or others you feel are relevant.
I put a post-it up offering to run a session about Blog Preston and Blog Local, explaining how we wanted to expand the Blog Local idea with other blogs. We got mashed into a session about social media surgeries and using social media to empower communities. Read the rest of this entry »
Preston and Lancashire are home to two very exciting unconferences this autumn, it does seem as though the UK is going unconference mad at the moment!
First up there is Barcamp Blackpool on Saturday 17th October, I’m in London so can’t go to it, but it’s an opportunity for creative, innovative and passionate people to come together to talk about whatever they like – the agenda is set on the day. It’s going to be held at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and there are going to be well over 100 people discussing everything from the latest tech stuff to the best way to rear a ferret! Gemma Cameron who organises Preston Geekup is behind it so it’s bound to be a success, she’s seeking sponsors so if you’re interested get involved.
The second is Open09. This is being organised by the people behind Sandbox at the University of Central Lancashire and it’s going to be another unconference but it also involves Turtles. I’m not 100% sure what Turtles are but the website says:
An informal workshop with a group of up to 40 participants. Each Turtle has its own dedicated website with its own authors, participants and agendas.
The topics at Open 09 range from the future of journalism and media to the latest goings on in the world of fashion. If you’re in any sort of creative industry you need to make sure you’re involved in this, it looks like it’ll be immense.
So, I’ll be joining in with some of these unconferences this autumn and I shall report back about my experiences at these rather unstructured events. How will they compare to the stand up and be presented to with a powerpoint events?
Image credit to Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
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