Networked journalism made easy

[AKA journalists and the public working together]

So a member of the public sends the website on which I work a nugget [a few sentences] of a memory to do with local history.

Great, says I, a gem of an idea which with some work [research] could be turned into a nice little local history story. Right! Research time...

Then I remember. There's a guy whose blog I've been reading for some time now has occasional pieces about local history [they're forever popping up in my feedreader] and we've exchanged some banter previously.

I'll drop him a line and ask if he knows anoything, and on this occasion he turns out to have a lot of local and relevant knowledge!

Thanks Colin - he even gets a blog post out of it too!

OK, so there's nothing new about this way of working say you long-in-the-tooth hacks. A contact tips off a hack, he / she does a little research and then trots out a story and moves on to the next one.

But there is a subtle difference and it's all in the process of managing [1] the tip-off and [2] the contacts to help with the backgrounder.

I had grabbed the RSS feed from Colin's blog an age ago [and obviously added it to my feedreader] when I was trawling the web for something else.

From time to time his missives popped up in the said feedreader and received a cursory glance on my part. I may also have posted a comment or two or exchanged an email with him.

You know, like hacks used to do when they'd go and see a contact and exchange some banter before press releases were king.

Except using a feedreader means I can now keep up with such contacts via the web. I can actually read their thoughts [weblogs] and even offer my own, of course. After all, a journalist - particularly a local journalist - can't keep taking. He / she's got to give something too.

As I've said, there is nothing remarkable in what I've just outlined - what is remarkable is journalists still don't appear to be using these tools that can make their lives easy.

Why go and visit a website when it can come to you [via your feedreader] - and only when it has something new to tell you.

And why not nurture relationships with potential contacts by subscribing to their blog [you do still have to be choosy as there's not much value in reading what they had for breakfast].

And for heaven's sake grab the RSS link to search terms and put that in your feedreader so you no longer have to waste time periodically visiting Google news et al and typing in terms in the vain hope it will throw up a story.