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• 05.15.08
  It’s my blog and I’ll be as bitter and twisted as I like. Paul, Tim – you should have been there boys. I’d have bought you a beer in Vegas… General, Journalism | (3)

  I guess we really ought to be generous in our praise of the winner - or rather the only, UK-based entry to win through to the big cheque and Las Vegas prize-giving stage of this year's Knight News Challenge. For those of you who don't actually know what the Knight News Challenge is - www.newschallenge.org - it is a highly-laudable effort by the Knight Foundation people to further innovation in community-centred, digital news. In their own words: "We are a national foundation with local roots. We choose, as our founders John S. and James L. Knight chose, to focus on journalism and ...

  Tagged: JEECamp, Knight News Challenge, Las Vegas, Paul Bradshaw, Yoosk.com
  
• 03.30.08
  Time to make our piece with the world; and make Halifax the centre-’piece’ of our survival General, Journalism, MFW, MLW | (7)

  Paul used the term in one of the headlines to his JEECamp look-back the other week. I can't remember if the term 'cottage' ever crossed my lips or not - it's usually a phrase that I'm rather wary of - so, I'll give Paul his due. Because, to my mind, Paul's spot-on. Journalism has every chance of returning to a cottage industry as the next generation of local journalists finally find their feet in this ever-shifting digital landscape. After all, there are three of us here in East Anglia who sit at our kitchen tables and churn out professional copy for a ...

  Tagged: Broxbourne, Google, Halifax Piece Hall, JEECamp, MyFootballWriter.com, MyLocalWriter.com, Paul Bradshaw, Rupert Murdoch, Wikipedia
  
• 03.25.08
  Mr Magic Lantern, Part II. Shedding a little light on the biggest challenge for us all – proving value. Advertising, General, Journalism, MFW, MLW | (0)

  Apologies if we go back to the same 'source' material again. And this time, I'll give the author his due - Mr Anthony Lilley, take a bow. But the more I read it, the more gems you find. With the same on-going proviso - that you read it through the eyes of a wood-stainer. For whether by accident or design, it bangs nail after nail on the head. Or at least gives some great starting points for a discussion. This baby, for example. "Our use of media is shifting to find a new balance between the creation and distribution of content as we have ...

  Tagged: Anthony Lilley, Archant, Bill Keller, Clay Shirky, JEECamp, LA Times, MyLocalWriter.com, Shane Richmond, TrinityMirror
  
• 03.19.08
  Of water lilies and long tails; of triangles and a report by Ernst & Young… Advertising | (4)

  We haven't mentioned banks yet. We will. But on one of my little forays down to London, a mate of mine who helped me unearth Mexican Kev's missing 'millions' from somewhere in mid-banking Atlantic introduced me to one of his best 'blue sky thinkers'. Nice lad, to be fair. And you could see he was Mr Blue Sky from the moment you walked into this open plan office. He was the one afforded enough space for a putting machine. Anyway, I did the Mark I water lilies and long tails at him; he then did nice triangles at me. Speaking to Kyle of www.scunnered.com ...

  Tagged: Ernst & Young, JEECamp, Virgin Wines
  
• 03.18.08
  Two young men with the digital world at their finger-tips; this new world will belong to them… MFW | (1)

  With Kev hanging out of his back bedroom window, Ian slaving over a hot addiply cms in his mum's spare room and Neil off proofing the history of art, it was time for the boss to treat the rest of the MFW troops to lunch. Both of them. It should have been three, but Tom was down with flu. Mark does Ipswich, Nick does Colchester; both do MFW like a dream. There was a time when we thought we might go the franchise route with MFW; build a football reporter starter-pack and let people take the 'kit' off the shelf and off they ...

  Tagged: JEECamp, MyFootballWriter.com, MyLocalWriter.com, Paul Bradshaw
  
• 03.17.08
  The art of elegant organisation; or the scribblings of a loon… General | (4)

  It was a simple question from Pete Ashton - and one that, at the time, I had no answer to. I'm not sure I do now. Which is why, in part, Out With A Bang is here to help. Kind of. Anyway, the question. 'Is that model you drew online?' Drew is probably over-stating it. Scribbled is a more accurate phrase as the old flip chart, marker pen and A-frame were assembled for the new kid on the (un)conference block as I tried to offer some 'elegant organisation' to the whole MFW thing. And, indeed, potentially to the whole www.mylocalwriter.com baby. I'd scribbled the thing ...

  Tagged: Archant, BBC, ITV Local, JEECamp, MyFootballWriter.com, MyLocalWriter.com, scribbles, Trinity Mirror
  
• 03.16.08
  Talking the talk while trying to walk the walk… General | (3)

  Actually it's more a case of trying to work out how this thing works... Anyway, welcome to Out With A Bang. For which you need to blame-stroke-thank Paul Bradshaw, Pete Ashton and Banks' Brewery who - quite correctly, with hindsight - pointed out a gaping hole in MFW's armoury, a blog in the beery aftermath of last Friday's JEECamp. But one early word of warning, Out With A Bang is not going to touch on all things football. Or not much, anyway. That's the day job; this is the late-at-night musings bit. This is bit where we work out - in public - what ...

  Tagged: Addiply, Clay Shirky, JEECamp, MyLocalWriter.com, Paul Bradshaw, Pete Ashton
  

recent posts

• It’s a simple point – one that GMG and their Leeds outpost has just started to prove. It’s always been the little victories… ;)
• The future provision of local news in the UK heads deep, deep into the long grass. Olympics first peeps, your survival later…
• Mr Schmidt is bang on the money – again. The trick may well be to let people personally organise the ‘news’ that really matters to them…
• Five slides with no story attached; for that, you’ll all just have to use your imagination…
• A live London Underground map sets the data miners’ hearts a-racing; for me, however, there are richer seams to be mined deep underground…
• Why, IMHO, 81 into MyCornwall.TV and YourNorwich.TV won’t go; whatever Messrs Parry and Shott think, the answer to local ‘TV’ will bubble up from below…
• DMGT appear curiously at ease with central Government ad spend going down the proverbial toilet; fine, in which case give those last pennies to every Josh we can find