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April 2009

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• 04.30.09
  Two days on from days out in Whitehall and, for me, the lessons are clear. You can spend your time herding cats or participating in street-level conversations with your constituents. Mmmm… General, Journalism | (5)

  Tis only Thursday; so Tuesday's gathering of the great and the media good - and me - in Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons is still relatively fresh in the mind. Given it was all conducted on Chatham House rules and given my knowledge of licence fee slicing and switch-over surplusses is sketchy at best, it probably needs to be a case of broader brush-strokes anyway. The stage, by and large, belonged to the big beasts of TV; that - to me - appeared to be one of the primary concerns of the gathering; to work out who was ever ...

  Tagged: Andy Burnham, Anthony Lilley, BBC, ITV, OfCom, www.darwenreporter.com
  
• 04.27.09
  The BBC head to Mr Burnham’s table tomorrow bearing a few gifts for us all. And being this fledgling written content network, I might even be able to give them one back… Journalism, MFW | (2)

  This is interesting. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/26/bbc-share-local-media On a number of fronts; not least in the fact that someone, somewhere has found me a ticket to tomorrow's ball and so alongside '... Helen Boaden, the BBC's head of news, and David Holdsworth, controller of the English regions, as well as other industry executives and the National Union of Journalists....' will be yours truly. Given that I'm a big fan of the Tom Hanks film 'Big', I have this image of me being sat round some corporate table at Portcullis House tomorrow, gingerly poking my hand in the air and saying: 'I don't get it...' ...

  Tagged: Archant, BBC, MyFootballWriter.com, Newsquest, Northcliffe
  
• 04.23.09
  The lesson comes from the streets of Baghdad. That our future has to be a ‘joint operation’; you need grunts on the ground, you win no hearts and few minds with just drones in the air General, Journalism | (3)

  Apologies if the analogy proves over-stretched. Whilst there might be a forest fire of our worst imaginings raging all about us right now in old media land, it bears no comparison to events elsewhere in the world - notably, in this case, the conflicts that continue to engulf the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. And apologies if I've been blog-lite of late. The home PC died last night and my shoulder has felt similarly under the weather since mounting an assault on the garden last weekend. Anyway, the point about mentioning conflicts comes with regard to how they are currently being resolved; and, ...
• 04.17.09
  If you can’t be hyper-national or pan-global and you don’t do what you do in TS10 in NR14, you’re in trouble. You don’t ‘fit’ easily into a Digital Britain. General, Journalism | (1)

  For a fair while now, I've kind of worked on the basis that this web world of ours will go one of two ways... you'll either be hyper-national a la The Telegraph, The Guardian, et al... ... or you'll be hyper-local. A la Linda at www.darwenreporter.com And James at www.towcesternews.co.uk And there won't be too much left in-between. As there isn't where the Rocky Mountain News once lived. http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=56 How The Telegraph, The Guardian et al fund their hyper-national stroke global efforts, I've no idea. Not any of my business. I'm a bottom of the pond dweller; not a water lily. But clearly that's where ...

  Tagged: DarwenReporter.com, Northcliffe, The Guardian, Trinity Mirror
  
• 04.15.09
  If only the UK had a Knight Foundation, says Roy, then we too might be enjoying the learning curve that is EveryBlock. But I think we have… General, Journalism | (2)

  Mr Greenslade wrote an interesting post the other day - and all on a subject painfully dear to our hearts. Who is ever going to fund hyper-local news projects in this country... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/apr/14/digital-media-local-newspapers These days I can give you a list as long as your arm of those who won't... For certain people charged with, quote, 'making innovation flourish' doing any such thing would be 'beyond their area of expertise and experience...' Which always struck me as a particularly ludicrous response given that if everyone was (a) an expert in said matters and (b) had plenty of experience in such areas, it can't have ...

  Tagged: Clay Shirky, Knight News Challenge, Roy Greenslade, The Scott Trust
  
• 04.12.09
  Might Mr Reznor be about to bang a Nine-Inch Nail into the coffin of the web browser? He is hosting a conversation with his community off an app… not via a search… General, Journalism | (0)

  For now, just a short post. Weeds, more weeds and a late Easter Sunday lunch with the Old Dear await. But sometimes, a thought and a coincidence strike together - and there is a need to put finger-tip to keyboard. This is from C Shirky. It is from the piece that I read on my 40th birthday; January 16, 2006. It still has a lot to answer for. “In the same way that there’s a split between the music industry and the recording industry, there’s a split between writers and the newspaper industry. “The recording industry is in trouble but the music industry is not, ...

  Tagged: Google, iPhone
  
• 04.08.09
  The three ‘P’ riders of Ms Bell’s forthcoming apocalypse. Press hall, paper boy and pension deficit. General, Journalism | (2)

  One of the bigger tragedies of any impending break-up of Press Gazette would be a loss of Peter Kirwan's Media Money column. For me - ever since we first hooked up at a UCLAN speaking gig and in the hotel bar thereafter - he has been something of a shining light; a regular hook upon which I could hang my 'hot air and baloney' hat. So, hopefully, whatever web phoenix emerges from the Press Gazette print ashes, Pete will find a new home to call his own. If not, then his last ever post might prove one of his more significant given that, ...

  Tagged: Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror
  
• 04.08.09
  Now the Wall St Journal ponders the same kind of thoughts as Mr Cuban and his Mavericks, that the time might be nigh for a ‘beat writers co-operative’… General, Journalism, MFW | (1)

  This piece is fascinating. And, yes, I know I say that all the time. But it is. Particularly for anyone who spent a few quid the other year on www.mybasketballwriter.com. Along with www.mybaseballwriter.com and www.myhockeywriter.com. Just in case... Anyway, here we go... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123906424665995337.html Basically, for those of you tired of linking, the two authors are starting to chart the decline and fall of the sports 'beat' reporter... the US basketball writing fraternity in this case. Those charged with following the city's basketball team 'on the road' for a season. Just as I've been 'on the road' for 16 years with Norwich City; first on behalf of ...

  Tagged: MyFootballWriter.com, WSJ
  
• 04.07.09
  How do we ’save’ journalism? By entering the spirit of this new, post-capitalist age and making transparency our No1 goal. We have to leave the ‘era of sunlight’ behind us… Advertising, General, Journalism | (0)

  It was this headline on BuzzMachine that got me a-thinking; that our Arianna was about to 'save' journalism... http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/04/06/arianna-huffington-saves-journalism/ It is an interesting piece in the sense that it chimes well with the current debate about 'not-for-profit' business models; that, perhaps, the future of decent journalism might - for now - have to rest with the generosity of a donor or two. Or at least as we wait for new 'Foundations' to spring up to fund various future news organs in the manner of The Scott Trust. News organs, one presumes, that don't look like the MEN, the Reading Bi-Weekly Chron or the ...

  Tagged: David Cohn, Huffington Post, Jeff Jarvis, Spot.Us
  
• 04.03.09
  If brown was once the new black, is small the new big? Because one or two people are starting to take offence at an oblique way of working… Advertising, General | (2)

  There were a couple of Google bits and bobs that caught my eye today. Both, for me, touch on an increasingly familiar theme. Big. Just how big would any Google-Twitter tie-up be? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/apr/03/twitter-google And then something of a developing backlash about the search giant poking its big nose down my street... in an 'unmarked black Opel... with a 360 degree camera on the roof...' http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/03/google-street-view-broughton All very Orwellian. And maybe, just maybe, this is where Google could be coming unstuck. People don't like big. Big business, big government and, of course, big media - right now, they all suck. Matthew Buckland's piece the other week is worth a re-visit. http://www.matthewbuckland.com/?p=675 In it, ...

  Tagged: Google, Jeff Jarvis, Matthew Buckland
  

• « Previous Entries

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• OK, as austerity bites ever deeper into our daily lives lets go round this block again: planning application or lollipop lady?
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