BBC's Salford leaflets: Your views?

As I reported on The Guardian’s Organ Grinder blog today, the newsletter exercise to inform Salford residents about the BBC move to MediaCityUK is set to cost almost £10,000 over the year.

Is that value for money?

So far the comments have been from people who aren’t in receipt of the newsletters from BBC Outreach. I’d like to hear from anyone who has had one delivered to their door – did you find it useful? What do you hope to see in future issues?

Please feel free to contact me below or via email to sarahMancunianWay AT googlemail.com.

Beatblogging – what is it?

There’s been some interesting reaction to the job advertisements put out this week by The Guardian for the project I’m involved in.

Beatblogger isn’t a job title used much here in the UK as yet, and it’s prompted some common questions in the comments section of the initial news story about Guardian local, and elsewhere, which I thought I’d pick up here.

In addition, any potential applicants are invited to put their questions during a forum I’m taking part in about developing journalism roles which will be held next Thursday, October 22 between 1pm and 4pm at http://careers.guardian.co.uk/forums

Back to those points;

* Firstly, pay.
Although it’s normal practice for The Guardian not to state pay grades in its job ads (in common with many other news organisations), these are full-time paid positions.

* Are these bloggers, journalists?
All Media Scotland was one of those which asked if the term “beatblogger” was a new word for journalist. This is a role which has specific attributes and skills used to create a beat blog, a good definition of which is provided here by New York’s Prof Jay Rosen an extract from which states:

“Content-wise, a beat blog presents a regular flow of reporting and commentary in a focused area the beat covers; it provides links and online resources in that area, and it tracks the subject over time.”

For anyone interested in the specifics of what will be entailed, there’s detailed descriptions at the links at the bottom of the ads – this is the one for the Cardiff post, but the descriptions for Leeds and Edinburgh are just the same.

* What about experience?
This job could well appeal to experienced reporters with great contacts from traditional backgrounds but is just as likely to attract people who’ve set up community websites or blogs and have a passion for their locality. Rather than be too prescriptive about background, we’re asking people to demonstrate why they believe they would be successful in the role and how they feel equipped to cover the city.

Any potential applicants with further questions can log on to the forum debate next Thursday, October 22 between 1pm and 4pm at http://careers.guardian.co.uk/forums and it would be great to hear from any beatbloggers out there who want to share their experiences or offer any advice to potential applicants.

Join me at 1pm for questions about online journalism

Later today I shall be joining a live Q&A session about online journalism at the Guardian’s careers website.

It starts at 1pm and we’ve put a few hours aside to offer advice to anyone starting out on a career online.

Because of the never-ending diet of stories about newspaper cuts, closures and lay-offs (in fact I nearly headlined this brief signpost “So you still want to be a journalist?”) many people seem to think it’s time to turn tail and look for a different (more lucrative) career.

But I hope that isn’t the case.

Being a journalist is still, imho, one of the best jobs on the planet and there are a whole raft of opportunities opening up in the world of the web.

So, less of the doom and gloom. I’m looking forward to contributing to a discussion which focuses on the future.

If you have a question for me, or one of the other panellists (see the full list here) , please do join us later.

links for 2009-07-28

• Social Journalism: Curate the Real-Time Web » Publish2 Blog
  What’s Social Journalism? It’s what you do when you gather information in social media channels and then report it to your readers. Watching a Twitter #hashtag for posts related to a critical local issue or big event, then publishing them in a roundup or sidebar on your news site? That’s Social Journalism. Scanning YouTube for the latest video from a protest, county fair, or city council meeting? That’s Social Journalism.
  (tags: journalism tools socialmedia iran publish2 aggregation)
• How 31 Year Olds Consume Media : Dan Wilson’s Blog
  We remember when having a telephone meant that mum used her special phone voice and said our own telephone number when she picked up the receiver. Calling after 6pm was cheaper and calling abroad was prohibitively expensive. We used to phone up other people’s houses and just hope they were in. Yes, really.
  (tags: twitter internet media online socialmedia funny)
• BBC strikes web video-sharing deal | Media | guardian.co.uk
  The BBC is providing a limited range of video news content to Mail Online, guardian.co.uk, Telegraph.co.uk and Independent.co.uk, which will supplement the newspaper websites’ own material, in four areas – UK politics, business, health and science and technology.
  (tags: guardian media bbc video)
• Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments
  You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter.

  After all, microblogging is a low-barrier to entry, low-risk and low-resource channel relative to other corporate communications overheads like a blog or printed newsletter. And the pioneers in corporate use of Twitter by central government (see No 10, CLG and FCO) all started as low-profile experiments and grew organically into what they are today.

  (tags: twitter tools government)

Digg it like The Telegraph for news success

Digg – a sometimes fun, but essentially useless, way to spike your site with foreign traffic or an essential tool for SEO? North Yorkshire based search expert Patrick Altoft urged journalists to think again about the American giant during a session on integrating social media into news operations at yesterday’s Digital Editor’s Network.

Patrick has often been faced with the argument that there’s little point for newspaper editors in working to get their content on the front page of Digg to receive a flood of traffic which can not be monetised with local advertisers in the UK but he put forward a different way of looking at it.

“A lot of newspaper editors believe there’s no real value in Digg because they are foreigners, they are not even going to see the ads and most people from Digg leave within three seconds.

“The key thing to remember is that you will, on average, get 300 links every day – that’s a lot of links to get every month”.

Yes it’s all about link love.

The hundreds of links which succeeding in Digg will create, will boost search engine positioning and could ultimately result in that audience which can be monetised hitting your site. And he revealed how The Telegraph is putting Digg right at the heart of its strategy to build audience by having an SEO expert working alongside journalists in the newsroom – even before the story is created – and ensuring every possible optimisation before it’s published and that all important one-hit-only Google spidering takes place.

“The Telegraph has SEO and social media people in the newsroom. There needs to be somebody involved from the social media team before the content is created, research exactly what people are talking about. After creation, it’s back to the SEO team to find out whether it’s been optimised.”

And promotion of the story after publication is also vital, he said. “Journalists at The Telegraph are encouraged to submit stories to Digg. “How many journalists, after the story is written, work on promoting that story? This is where bloggers are different.” He recommends setting up an automated promotion network which involves TSS, Twitter, email subscriptions and Google news pings within 30mins of publication to get the first-mover advantage on any story.

It was a fascinating and useful presentation for anyone concerned with gaining social media relevance in a news org and the full slide set is here and you can Digg this here.

Digital Editors Network
View more presentations from guest38a088

Of course, Digg isn’t the only game in town and earlier in the afternoon those attending the sesssion At UCLAN in Preston heard how another mighty player, The Guardian, is reaping success with Twitter.

Robin Goard from Hitwise told the group that 54% of Twitter traffic is going downstream to what it classified as media sites – news, entertainments, blogs etc.

And The Guardian was winning out with not just the home page featuring in the top statistics, but also the technology and comment is free sections where personality journalists such as Charles Arthur and Jemima Kiss were credited with developing the networks to drive traffic.

links for 2009-04-15

• PLEASE STAND BY: Putting social networking up front
  The one thing which did raise eyebrows about the social network integration, both inside and outside the company, was the suggestion that we’re effectively driving traffic from our site to other ones. And in these days when websites jealously guard their unique traffic, they have a point. But I think it’s a risk worth taking.

  People like to talk a good game on social networking in digital journalism. MediaGuardian’s podcast is full of talk of Twitter and Facebook. But it’s nice to think that of all the newspaper websites out there, we’re the first national trying something different by making our social networking profiles an integrated part of our identity as a website.

  (tags: glasgow iainhepburn socialmedia journalism, redesign)
• Social News Fail: Great local journalism goes unnoticed on major social news sites, finds love on WindyCitizen.com | The Citizen Speaks: The Official Windy Citizen blog. in Chicago
  Local news is a lost cause on the major social news sites.

  No matter how much effort local bloggers and publishers pour into promoting their work on them, it’s a lost cause. The audience there just doesn’t care about local news unless its either a weird-news-of-the-day-type item or a big scandal

  (tags: journalism socialmedia hyperlocal media news digg local delicious)
• How the Ian Tomlinson G20 video spread The Guardian brand across the media – currybetdotnet – 14 April, 2009
  So the interesting question is why there is such a big difference in the approach taken online and in print. Online the majority of the serious papers were unstinting in linking to and crediting The Guardian, whereas in print there was a much greater reluctance.
  (tags: newspapers video guardian distribution media onlinejournalism linking tweet tomlinson)

Twits and the NUJ

• NUJ “grow up” – to borrow a phrase
  This issue just runs and runs………..and with every comment, the NUJ supporters succeed in widening the gulf of understanding. As soon as people start posting “grow up” in response to comments and coming up with inspired(sic) insults such as “dumb blog millions’ heir” *sighs* – it’s probably time for us bloggers to take the conversation elsewhere.
  (tags: journalism blogging blogs media kevinanderson adamtinworth nuj guardian chriswheal)
• Let the Twitter backlash begin
  More reaction to the most recent Twitter-bashing article from the Times. This from long-time user Duncan Riley who makes the point that the platform has changed a great deal in the past 18 months: “Stars bring in followers, and the picture painted by The Times for a sizable portion of the new comers isn’t inaccurate. Nor is it for the stars themselves; no doubt some are manipulating Twitter for self promotion.”
  (tags: twitter psychology socialnetworking technology internet research microblogging times identity followers riley)

Four points from this week’s Digital Editor’s Network

The bad weather led to a smaller than usual turn-out for Tuesday’s DEN get together but those of us who made it heard some quality speakers. Here’s a few points from each;

1. Mark Skipworth from The Telegraph started by banging the drum for journalism as a job choice for the student element of the audience saying now was a great time for enterprising journos looking to forge careers.Some insights into working practices at The Telegraph proved interesting for those of us already in the industry. The working day starts with a ‘web-only’- news conference and reporters now work to two different news desks. The online news editor works during the early part of the day, directing journalists busy breaking news while the old-style news editor picks up later in the day with reporters re-working the stories for print. How those two desks dovetail must provide plenty of challenges. There’s more analysis of this Harris Lecture at Alison Gow’s blog.

2. The Guardian’s blogs editor Kevin Anderson gave us something of an insight into his remarkable journey across America covering the US presidential election, in part by utilising available social media tools. Geo-tagging everything as he went, Kevin was able to produce an interactive map of the journey. His coverage totalled 50 blog posts, 1,600 tweets, 2,050 photos and covered 4,000 geo-tagged miles. DEN has been fortunate to have Kevin speak previously and I always enjoy the enthusiasm he brings to the topic and the way he can so clearly demonstrate the journalistic benefits of social media.

3. Alison Gow of the Liverpool Post and Echo was able to give us the benefit of her experience of liveblogging – something her paper seems to be leading the UK regional press pack on. Because they have done so many very different live blogs – court cases, football, the giant spider and a Royal visit to mention just a few – it was interesting to hear how different the audience’s reactions have been to each. Alison told us how users for the “social” events such as the spider and the Queen would be quick to demand (and share) pix and video while football followers wanted to give and receive opinion. Useful stuff for anyone planning to follow suit.

4. Finally, Eric Ulken was able to talk about the opportunity and experience of creating deep data content such as this amazing homicide map from his former employer the LA Times. Despite having every presenter’s nightmare scenario of  unexpected wi-fi failure, Eric was able to describe how the map had come about with a three-way mash-up of public data (the stats, dates etc of murders) , staff journalism (crime reports/blogs etc) and public contribution (tributes, comments). Eric also pointed to his bookmarks for some further examples. Lots to learned here.

A previous commitment at Manchester’s Social Media Cafe meant I was unable to attend the panel event in the evening but you can replay Robert Peston et al here.

In a deviation from the norm there also wasn’t time to share what we’re currently all doing online around the regional press – if you have a burning project just waiting to be shared, please do feel free to do so via the links otherwise – see y’all at the next one!

February’s DEN meeting focus on business

Next month’s meeting of the Digital Editors’ Network is promising a range of high-profile speakers willing to share their expertise with regional journalists working online.

Organiser Nick Turner says the free event at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston on Tuesday, February 3 will include the elements listed below before a panel discussion looking at the economics of journalism takes place in the evening:

• An insight into the digital transformation of the Daily Telegraph when Mark Skipworth, executive editor of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph gives the University’s Harris Lecture.

• A discussion about how newspapers can best make use of their archives in the digital age with a presentation by Patrick Fleming, head of reader and reference services at the British Library.

• The Guardian blogs editor Kevin Anderson on lessons learned from the social media coverage of the UK presidential election. With a UK election lurking somewhere on the political horizon it should be an informative and useful session.

• Eric Ulkin, former Los Angeles Times online editor, will talk about building the LA Times datadesk and alternative forms of story building.

The day will also include a networking reception and a Journalism Leaders Forum in the evening with BBC Business Editor Robert Peston joining the panel for a discussion entitled: ‘Reviewing the bottom line: the journalism of economics and the economics of journalism’

The Guardian’s Blogs Editor Kevin Anderson will chair the discussion and panelists will include: Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor; Kate McKenzie, interactive editor, FT.com; Arthur Porter, publisher, Crain’s Business (Manchester) and Chris Barry, editor, TheBusinessDesk.com (North West).

I shall be posting more at this blog from the event but if you want to attend and get further details, please email Nick Turner nturner@cngroup.co.uk.

UK journalists using Twitter

I was interested to see PR Blogger’s post identifying which British journos are using Twitter (as individuals rather than a company news feed).

It’s great to have this as a sort of directory so people can track down a particular individual’s activity so I hope it continues to grow.

A couple of things struck me about the list;

* There seems to be a bit of a north-south divide. Just a few of us as far north as Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire but what about the rest of England and the Scots?

* Among the nationals, is tweeting a broadsheet only activity? Are there any red-top colleagues using Twitter?

If the micro-blogging platform continues to grow in popularity as fast as it has been to date, then they’ll soon need a whole database to cope with a directory.

Perhaps twitter names will be as commonplace as a phone number one day and there will be a 118 number to call to get people’s Twitter names with the original networked bird Buzby as its mascot.

(btw, the image on this page was borrowed from dirtymartini.wordpress.com/2008/02/ who used it alongside a posting on how phone technology has changed. S/he quite rightly also pointed out that no-one under 25 would understand what this yellow bird was all about so, if you fall into that age-group, apologies.)