Long time, no post (again). So, again, let’s round up what’s been going on with the site.
Blogs: We’ve added a good new blogger, local Stags fan Craig Priest, to our already bulging roster of bloggers. A few of them (me included), need a bit of a kick into action occasionally, and there’s something still very half-finished about the whole operation. I need to revisit it and spruce it all up again.
Podcasts: We have produced 7 episodes of our magazine-style Sports Talk show. It’s excellent, but we’ve still not found a regular audience for it. We’re having a break to get some new ideas for it, but it’s a good show so deserves a bit more time to grow. Stags Talk, of course, still thrives. And is now sponsored!
Twitter: Twitter seems to be on the verge of going mainstream (Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry, Russell Brand are all on there now – that should do it), while it’s already fairly firmly established as the journalistic networking tool du jour. I’m on there with a work profile, and the Chad also sends out headlines on there too. Are you on there. Do you want to be? Feel free to ask me for help if you want some on getting set up. There aren’t many Notts folk on there at the moment, we need more. I’m a relative ‘newbie’ myself (I have my own profile there and am trying to get into the habit of using it), but I’ll help if I can.
However, there is a bit of an issue with Twitter, and blogging for that matter, which I’ve still not resolved. I am torn between two worlds. One is the ‘world’ of Mansfield, and one is the world of journalism.
You see, there is a burgeoning network of journalists across the country constantly interacting with each other via their blogs, and now Twitter (which is essentially a microblog). The main topic of conversation seems to be journalism itself – how to use the latest tools/toys; the state of the industry; general idle banter. It’s something I can’t, and shouldn’t, ignore. It’s an ongoing conversation about where journalism is going, and it’s one I want to be a part of. Sadly, I often don’t feel like I’ve got that much to say.
This is because these amazing new tools of journalism just don’t seem to be as relevant to the smaller papers as they are to the city/national journalists. I’m on Twitter! Great! So are about 12 other people in the whole of Mansfield. Compare this to our 3,200 Facebook friends. I can try to use Twitter as journalistic tool (as I am doing), but its main benefit seems to remain as a networking device. Maybe this is about to change – like I already said, Twitter does appear to be about to explode into the public consciousness.
But fun as it all is, there is still the overwhelming feeling that I’m still more likely to find a great story in a Mansfield pub than I am by sitting in front of my computer screen updating my Twitter feed (not that I actually do any reporting myself anymore – which may also be part of the problem, but let’s not get into that now).
As journalism enters what appears to be a phase of rapid transformation, it will be interesting to see if what works for the dailies is as relevant to the weeklies as everyone seems to be assuming. I hope it is – it looks like fun.
While we wait to see, find me on Twitter and say hello.
