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.
Here at the Chad, we’ve been working hard on improving our video reports, and trying to build an audience for them, but for some time now a Big Black Cloud has been hanging over our heads. And no, those capitals aren’t a mistake.
The BBC has been considering proposals to expand its online video coverage with a £68m network of 60 more localised websites (would this include a BBC Mansfield website?), and it has been hard not to see this as a direct threat to the success of sites such as our own. With the corporation’s unrivalled expertise and experience, their video reports and websites would blow our own still relatively amateur attempts out of the water. We need more room to breathe, and for our newsrooms to get truly comfortable with cross-platform publishing.
Thankfully, it seems the BBC Trust agrees. They are giving us some room to manoeuvre. What’s important now is that we (local newspaper websites) make the most of it.
PODCAST! Our second regular podcast, Sports Talk, is gathering momentum. It’s not technically a podcast yet because I’ve not got around to all the xml/iTunes admin, but watch this space. We published our second episode yesterday and we feel we’re really hitting our stride now.
Anyone who regularly watches videos on our website, or any other Johnston Press website, will know that we don’t have embedded video on our news pages. Well, now, we do.
It’s a short-term solution, but I’ve found a way to embed a YouTube player into a news article. I’m hoping it will make it easier to watch our video content, as a number of people have told me they’ve had trouble with our pop-up windows media player.
There are a number of drawbacks, which I won’t bore you with. In short, I think it’s an improvement, but, please, judge for yourselves.
Regularly, we send our loyal, hard-working reporters out to conduct video interviews and piece together video packages, sometimes all on their own.
They return, sweating and shaky, clasping the mini-DV tape in their hands like a Shankara stone. We pop it into the tape deck and look at what they’ve filmed. And then I start criticising. I find fault with everything I can, from framing, to sound quality, to interview technique. Once they’ve edited the piece, I cast my critical eye over their edit. Anyone would think I’m some kind of video Jedi, from all the pearls of wisdom that spill out of my mouth.
But in fact, in the past year I’ve not once put together my own package from start to finish. I’ve helped others see theirs through, but never gone through the whole process on my own, unaided. This makes me a big fat hypocrite. Surely I should be leading from the front?
In my defence, I’m not too harsh a taskmaster, and I think everyone’s coming on pretty well with video given the limited amount of time we have at our disposal. But in order to understand how much of an ask it is to get someone to plan, film and edit a video news package on their own, I really needed to do it myself.
Thanks to a tip from the always-useful Online Journalism blog, I’ve downloaded the Shozu application onto my phone, which allows me to update online accounts such as this here blog using my humble mobile phone (a Nokia N82). Now I just need a bluetooth keyboard, and then you’ll never hear the end of me. I’ve also tried posting a photo I took a while ago of a knackered old Morris Minor (I think that’s what it is). Let’s see what happens!
As promised, our blog platform has grown – by one, so far. It gives me great pleasure to introduce our shiny, state-of-the-art Chad Technology Blog, from Chad reporter and gizmo enthusiast James Hoy.
Anyone who actually follows this blog will be aware of the following two things: 1) I’m not the world’s most prolific blogger. 2) Even when I do get around to posting something, it’s invariably about the Chad website, and barely ever about the ‘Mansfield Newsroom’. So I think it’s about time I changed the name of the blog. It is not a Mansfield Newsroom Blog, it is a Digital Newsroom Blog.
In other news, I’m giving a bit of a much-overdue push to our blogging platform. Over the next few days we’re going to launch two or three new ones, courtesy of our hard-working reporters, and we’re planning on publicising our output a little bit more, both on the Chad website and in the paper.
One final thing – is this blog displaying strangely in your browser? It seems to be doing so in some, but looks fine in mine. I’ve got no idea what’s going on.
It seems my wish was Matt Wardman’s command – and here, in all its glory, is the latest addition to his roster of Militant about Mansfield badges. Thanks, Matt!
Digital Newsroom Blog 