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.