Just thought I’d flag up this video from the Media Trust, which gives an overview of Blog Preston.
The site was started by myself in January 2009 as a place for news and information about Preston, after the Preston Citizen (weekly paper) withdrew from the city.
Joseph Stashko is co-editor of the site and gives an insight into what his role involves, how we live blogged the general election, cover stories and much more.
It’s worth a watch to help understand how a community news site goes about operating and how ‘hyperlocal’ is measured by us.
Earlier this year I was at a journalism conference in Perugia and on one of the panels was a chap from the Huffington Post. He described how during the 2008 Presidential campaign they’d had a massive scoop when one of their contributors caught a candidate gaffe on video, it was uploaded and within hours it was leading most international news sites and the talk of the day on Twitter, Facebook and more.
Our panel discussed the implications of this on the media, and I said we’re living in a golden age of social media stupidity. Why? Because at the moment you can find copious amounts of information on people, their activities, and much more – but you can also find it very quickly.
I was reminded of this by Alison Gow’s excellent post on How to (Not) kill Journalism and how the web represents such an opportunity, particularly being able to crowdsource direct with your followers. Read the rest of this entry »
Took a trip over to Portcullis House last night for an event titled ‘Parliament and Online Communities’ (part of Parliament Week) – it brought together a mix of people who run independent local news sites in South London, large online communities and messageboards like Mumsnet and interested government open data types.
The question we had to mull over was essentially how can Parliament engage more with online communities, and both make itself more open and also get good quality information from its select committee inquiries on a whole range of different issues.
Parliament faces a big challenge, as outlined by Matt Instone – its head of online engagement – how does it take the mass of information which is being produced by the institution and make it accessible to the general public, and at the same time make people aware of what Parliament is and what it does. And crucially, how it is different from the government.
What is the recommended button there for? The equivalent of a Facebook like? A chance to show you appreciate the story, the author or the subject?
I’ve spotted a trend on WalesOnline, whenever we report the death of a young person – again, the one below is for a teenage boy drowning in a river in Carmarthenshire – we don’t get comments (very rarely) but we do get a lot of recommendations. Constantly in the most recommended lists, knocking rugby stars and political debates down a peg or two. Facebook is for posting the RIP messages and joining groups expressing your sorrow, sharing that grief with your friends, but local media sites are the way to show the wider world (outside of the Facebook login) that the death of a friend/relative is important to the community. 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.
Brief trip to London this week to discuss using social media in the newsroom at a Trinity Mirror news editor’s event.
It was a low-key event but always useful to see and hear what other people are doing at newsrooms across the country.
Below is a slideshow and a few notes from my presentation about some examples of how we’ve used social media to enhance our reporting and newsgathering, not just online but also in our print products at Media Wales.
You’ve got the twitter followers, you’re getting the thumbs up on Facebook and your stats are on the way up. But does anyone in the non-virtual community know who you are?
There’s no doubt having a good online presence is important for your hyperlocal site – and by that I mean a well-stocked Twitter feed, and tended Facebook page and all the other bells and whistles. But watch your stats go up when you get offline and make the connections. Read the rest of this entry »
Journalists have always had contacts, those people who we can go to for comment and stories. They might be professional people, police officers, nurses or the local cleaner at the comprehensive who overhears gossip when he’s having a ciggie round the back of the head’s office.
Now, though, through social media and the web we’ve got a pool of intelligent, connected and helpful people at our finger-tips. Here’s how to leverage it: Read the rest of this entry »
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