Not sure I’d call yourCardiff ‘hyperlocal’ – it’s probably just local. But nice article from Laura Oliver on journalism.co.uk on the launch of yourCardiff and the idea behind it.

It has my journey from journalism degree, to student media, to placements, to running Blog Preston (now that’s probably more hyperlocal, as Preston’s a smaller city). But I’m not going to get into the debate about what is, or isn’t, hyperlocal. It’s all good stuff.

Have a read of ‘Lessons from the hyperlocal frontline…’

Three weeks and a little bit into the role as Online Communities Editor with Media Wales and we’ve only gone and launched a community website for Cardiff.

We’re taking a bit of a risk, developing as we go along and hopefully building a community around the yourCardiff website. I’m hoping that by being open during the development stage we get people chipping in, suggesting ideas and feeling like it’s their site too – rather than just being developed some suits in an office.

This does however mean we’ve got a few gaping holes, some bits that say ‘under development’ and no doubt some parts that don’t display properly in Internet Explorer or some obscure browser.

But, it’s a win. We’ve hit the ground running, we’re building from the bottom up and hopefully creating a site that Cardiff can be proud of. It’s about the little things, celebrating what happens in communities (both location and interest wise) across the capital city of Wales.

We’ll no doubt have some fallings out, some disputes and some triumphs but I’m sure it’ll be fun along the way as we try to break our content down into hyper-local chunks – putting news and information into the hands of people in Cardiff. Sounds dangerous, it could be. Sounds ambitious, it is.

We’ll be using social media to help build our community, but it’s also about getting out of the office, out of the media hub and sticking our camera or pen and paper, into different places to find out what’s going on.

As I saw posted on a rather visceral blog post the other week – hyper-local is nothing new. It’s doing what local news organisations do best, tell people what’s going on in their area and community (be that location or subject of interest) but the web just opens up new opportunities and ways of doing that.

And finally, a huge thank you to unclewilco (Andrew Wilcox) for his break-neck development over the last few weeks. There’s much more to come.

Image credit to Auntie P

This post originally appeared on Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists as part of their May series about advice for those about to graduate in journalism this year.

It’s a tough market out there at the moment, not just in journalism but in any industry. As a legion of graduates prepare to scrap like never before for jobs with contracting companies, it must feel horrible to have started your studies in 2006 when the economy was stable, optomism was high and journalism was starting out on its adventure into a multimedia future.

Now it’s a different story. I read Kyle Christie’s post with interest, particularly about whether you should take a ‘non-journalism’ job to pay the rent or whether you should risk debt and starvation on a basic trainee salary.

There’s no easy answer. But I wouldn’t rail against anyone who took the non-journalism route, as that’s what I ended up doing.

My first job was actually a journalism job (and a few other things besides). It was running the student media at the University of Central Lancashire Students’ Union and I’d thoroughly recommend the opportunity to any students reading this. If you get the chance to stand for election, or apply for the position as it is in some places, do it. You learn a lot in a short space of time and you learn how to manage a team. You’re the editor, it’s on your head. It’s a great experience and it’s a real experience.

But, as I came to the end of my tenure as editor it was time find a job. I applied, citing my experience, showing my skills, pointing to my excellent degree. But nothing came of it, interviews came and went and I was staring unemployment in the eye. I landed a job where I had been working but on a short-term contract, it was a mix of different roles but ultimately a web-based role. It needed some journalism skills.

The advantage to doing a journalism degree is that you learn so many transferable skills. You learn how to tell stories, create content, edit, it’s not hard to make the jump into some other industries. You have to be organised, confident and a good communicator – and be able to work as part of a team. You’re ticking a lot of person spec boxes in many jobs that require less work/effort and command a better salary than those trainee positions.

But, as Kyle alluded to. You’ve got to keep your hand in. Once I had my reasonable salary and regular hours, I found I had some spare time. I set up a hyper-local blog for where I live. I wrote content, I blagged content from people. I got into my community, put on events, took pictures. Now I have 150 unique visitors a day, on average, and I might be able to apply for some funding.

So, if you do find yourself in a ‘non-journalism’ job, just remember it’s not the end. You can still be a journalist, you just might have to do it as a hobby to start off with and then see when the break comes. When it comes, take it with both hands.

This post originally appeared on the Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists group blog.

I thought long and hard about this month’s question, puzzling about whether it would be the new start-ups who will rule the media roost or whether the old juggernauts will continue in their place at the top of the media tree. After much puzzling I decided that I couldn’t decide who would win, and it lead me to the conclusion that there perhaps isn’t a battle-line being drawn yet – as we haven’t seen enough evidence of new start-ups.

To reach my conclusion I weighed up both sides:

The “old”

They have the power, resources and knowledge to transform themselves. Indeed some of them already are, opening themselves up, pushing more resources into multimedia and pushing their content out via different platforms.

Most importantly the “old” news organisations still have a huge readership, centred in one place, and they still have trust with a lot of their readers. Not everyone is in the ‘new wave’ of digitally literate. There are still those who prefer the printed page and there always will be.

The “old” media organisations will need to be working closely with those in the tech industry, particularly mobile phone makers and networks, to ensure that their content is accessible from anywhere at anytime. As mobile phones become more important for internet use and widespread easy access to wireless networks is commonplace, reading the latest headlines on your mobile phone web browser will be considered everyday normality.

“old” media brands will always have a place in the new media world, but they need to ensure that they have their content opened up and accessible in as many different ways as possible to their increasingly scattered and diverse readership.

The “new”

New start ups would be a good place to put yourself as a new journalist, but with them they carry huge risks. They exist in the online world, one that is still expanding, but as everyone keeps saying “there’s no money there yet” – well, not the money that was required to support the “old” media models.

Start ups will have to work hard to win trust, capture the public’s attention and ensure they are providing the right content. True it’ll be easier to make their content accessible and incorporate multimedia, it’s always starting afresh with a blank slate – but the “old” media have their archives, providing a lot of added value to their content.

The other thing that worries me is will any new start up that makes more than a penny suddenly by snapped up by the “old” media and incorporated into their corporate structures? We see it in the tech sector, a new network/tool comes along and then a giant like Google or Microsoft weighs in and buys it.

Startups though could have a big role to play in local/regional journalism. With a smaller patch to cover and the tools at their disposal, and with a declining local/regional “old” media (well here in the UK anyway) and murmurs of state intervention to save them – wouldn’t it be amazing if a state bail out went to a big fund that new media entrepreneurs could bid to for their local news media startup (yes, I realise this raises a whole load of ethical questions but it’s an idea)?

The battle between “old” and “new” media does not seem to be fully joined yet, as the “old” still dominate but if the “old” do not pull their fingers out over the next decade then the “new” will start to become a reality.

A few I’ve been reading today:

• You can’t just have peanut butter

How do you measure social media success?

• Obama – the revolution will be televised

Short piece about how if Obama does win next week, it could cause a lot of people to start re-write the politics marketing books. He’s shown how online can connect with the grassroots but that you can’t just be online, you have to be everywhere.

• The nostalgia of the hyperlocal

Nigel Barlow points me in the direction of Andrew Grant-Adamson who makes some interesting points about whether online could be the future of hyperlocal. With local newspapers across the country in huge decline, could online present a return to the local, local, news agenda? I think it’s all a question of resources.

This is my first post as part of the Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog ring over on journalism.co.uk. August’s topic is all about the challenges facing young journalists, so here goes:

The biggest challenge is… first the sheer amount of competition there now is in the media industry. I know it’s always been competitive, but with more and more universities offering journalism/media degrees the industry is full of ‘wannabe journalists’. This means that media organisations can keep their salaries nice and low, or in some cases not pay at all, and yet people will still bite at the chance to ‘have a go’. The turnover is high, the hours long, and I’m pretty sure for a recent graduate it’s demoralising stuff. I have friends who’ve gone in with high hopes, and been left nearly broke and their dreams shattered – or been stuck doing mundane work with little freedom.

As the economic slowdown begins to bite in the UK, and circulations continue to fall, the task of getting out on the beat and doing proper journalism is fast being ditched in favour of the story that will shift more papers there and then. The quick buck is often coming first. Going ‘off-diary’ is a luxury that few media organisations feel they can afford. For a young journalist, with ideas and drive, to be sat at a desk and faced with a pile of press releases and every ‘idea’ is shot down by more experienced colleagues must be a hell of a challenge in itself. As the recent departure of the BBC’s North-West political editor shows, the trend to ‘fluffy’ and ‘politics-lite’ reporting, is forcing many to consider their futures – and I’m sure there will be plenty of fresh meat willing to do ‘politics-lite’ reporting.

The challenge for many young journalist’s is having the confidence to stand up to an editor, or more senior colleague, and say ‘No, I think this is really important and I’ve got a great idea of how we can do more with this. We could do this on the web, we could do that on the web and cross-over to the paper/radio etc…’

Faced with negativity, cynicism and a lack of opportunities in traditioinal media organisations, it’s no wonder that so many talented journalist’s are jumping ship to public relations or other communications industries – where the budgets are bigger, the pay is better and the hours are more flexible.

• Blog investigations not all dog’s dinner

Interesting piece from Paul Bradshaw about the role that blogging/online/networked journalism can play online. Although, Paul does point out that this article wasn’t just about blogging but about investigative journalism as a whole.

My buddy Dave Lee has been suggesting setting up a blogging network (about journalism) for those under-30. Sounds like a good idea to me. His barriers to entry are:

a) Under 30-years-old. I know there will be a couple of disappointed people out there with this restriction, but without it I feel we lose the point a bit.

b) You blog (or plan to blog) about journalism in some shape or form. Bit of an obvious one, this, but I think it’s important that we’re all coming from the same place here. I’m not bothered what stage of you’re career you’re at, so long as that career’s journalism.

c) You promote the ring! If we all bring attention to this by shouting it from the rooftops, then there’s no reason why this can’t become the best point for young opinion on the media on the web.

Sounds good to me, I fit the criteria and dropped Dave an email – so I await more details with anticipation.

Great post by Adam Singer over on Future Buzz about journalist’s using blogging as an entreprenerial tool. He’s right, blogging is the best platform for people to write about what they care about. Every local newspaper needs to start learning some lessons as local bloggers could technically start covering their ‘patch’ better than the big-boys.

Playing catch-up here, but just thought I’d give a massive shout-out to Ricki Dewsbury for winning three awards at this year’s Press Gazette Student Journalism Awards. Ricki was deputy news editor during my time as editor of the UCLan Students’ Union newspaper, Pluto, and we worked together on the undercover investigation that eventually won him all those awards. Well done Ricki, top work.