A fellow blogger, John, asked me to take a look at his 'hyperlocal' site www.hoylakejunction.com. He decided to take the step into news reporting himself, fed up at a poor provision of news from other traditional sources.
Then came an email from a colleague highlighting a letter in yesterday's Guardian bigging up the BBC's local offering and under the headline, Local papers should sink without trace:
"...And if you want to see lots of different people's views on local issues, go to the forums on the BBC's Where I Live websites and local societies' websites. Much more healthy; let the local papers sink without trace."- Jan Miller
Paul Bradshaw's latest OBJ posting popped up in my feed first thing this morning: Letter to Govt. pt6: "How to fund quality local journalism" - a response to the government inquiry into the future of local and regional media.
In particular, I was interested in the section What the typical local media organisation might look like?
"A small group of editors, journalists and community managers work with a network of contributors to develop feeds in a number of formats, e.g. news stories linked to local maps, for geographical and issue-based hyper-localities: all of this online, using APIs to mash together maps, local government records, planning information etc."
Now that's interesting; "community managers" and a "network of contributors" - that's basically bringing the audience in on the content creation - and why not, that's what we're already doing on BBC Local in Wales.
Then I was alerted to a word of warning via Jeremy Wagstaff's blog. Last week he posted, A Bad Day for Social Media.
He was referring to the fact that on some big stories, listening to web chatter is not always helpful:
"When stories get more complex, social media doesn't always work. The current swine 'flu scare, for example, is highlighting how rumor and, frankly, stupidity can drown out wisdom and good sense."
There's lots to think about!
2 comments:
Hi Nick - thanks for the mention. Some interesting links there esp. the OBJ blog post.
There's lots of merit in using APIs for mashups but you also need unique local news that you don't cobble together from elsewhere.
I guess that without start-up funding, many hyperlocal sites are run by local bloggers in spare time - these sites aren't self-funding to begin with.
The blogger behind popular site DarwenReporter.com has called it quits only this week - be interesting to see if someone else takes it on.
As you say - lots to think about!
John
Hi Nick, v.interesting post. However, BBC may work as local in NE, but it doesn't serve anybody in mid Wales. Time for independent local news to take the stage...
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