Assignment idea

When Peter Preston recently visited JOMEC he said the future of the local and regional press would not be damaged by the internet, but defined by it. People such as Peter Clifton and Richard Burton have also come and told us that the web journalists of the future will need core news-gathering and storytelling skills in their armoury, the very skills we are being taught at the moment.

By using NewburyToday as a focus, and talking to people such as Simon Reynolds of the Lancashire Evening Post (who are launching Johnson Press websites with the aid of UCLAN) and Keith Perch of Northcliffe Electronic Publishing, I will look at how local and regional titles will be defined by the net.

Sarah Radford lecture

Sarah Radford, who graduated from JOMEC in 2004 (see picture to the right), is an online journalist with The Newbury Weekly News, whose website, NewburyToday, won last month’s Newspaper Society's "Best Weekly Newspaper Internet Site" award. She is the eighth lecturer in JOMEC’s online lecture programme.

The lion’s share of a local newspaper’s income is from advertising. At £1 a word to propose to the love of your life in the local paper, it’s not surprising you see the occasional: “B, mari me? F”. So it was interesting to hear Ms Radford say the directors of The Newbury Weekly News were looking to have the website pay for itself in advertising revenue within two to three years.

NewburyToday reminded me of a website I have done some work for, the official Crystal Palace FC site, which is a Premium TV site. They produce a similar multimedia product as NewburyToday but it is funded by a yearly subscription.

The BBC is considering selling advertising space on its website to foreign users (aka non-licence fee payers). It would be interesting to see, in a few years time, what percentage of the average local paper’s income is net-generated. If papers stay in their present form, will the net be seen as the more important medium in terms of advertising revenue like a supplement?

Richard Burton discussed picture galleries and the fact that every new click creates a new page impression. This is gold when selling advertising space. As more local newspaper websites start using these, and similar devices, a more profitable future could be sooner than expected.

*Pete Clifton lecture

Pete Clifton is Head of BBC News Interactive and the latest speaker in JOMEC’s online lecture programme.

A common concern among us high-fee-paying trainees is there will not be a place for the trained journalist in the new world of user-generated content. But why? For the last three weeks in a row a succession of highly credible new media maestros has come to tell us that it is ok, our role is indispensable – as long as we adapt.

Today Pete Clifton described an evolving online world which is very much based on some of the key principles of local journalism:

• Sources - Mr Clifton said: “User-generated content is not a new phenomenon.” He likened it to his experiences as a journalist on local papers in Northampton where he would rely on tip-offs from members of the public. “What’s really changed over the last few years or so is the ability to send stuff over their mobile phones.”



• Accountability – Veteran hacks (Richard Burton included) often extol the virtues of the accountability of the local press, where if a member of the public is aggrieved with a story they can easily find and confront the responsible journalist. Mr Clifton said Nick Robinson’s blog enabled him to: “nip in the bud criticism in a sharp way before it gets out-of-hand.” He added: “Our ambition is to be the most open and accountable news organsiation in the world.”



• Local knowledge – After problems with accuracy in the 2005 General Election constituency profiles, Mr Clifton said the BBC may experiment with user generated content as a basis of the next profiles they do.

Well, if Mr Clifton is interested, I have a cracking ward profile of Rumney in east Cardiff if he wants it – according to David English, it’s “not bad.”

Daniel Meadows lecture

Dr Daniel Meadows is a lecturer at JOMEC, having recently left his role at BBC Wales Digital Stories, a website dedicated to broadcasting users’ tales. He is the latest speaker in JOMEC’s lecture online programme.

Yesterday’s Sunday Times exposed a Loch Ness hotelier who promoted his hotel with a glowing online review. The article also revealed the current issue of the RAC hotel guide will be the last because the publishing company are going into liquidation due to competition from the web.

In Dr Meadows’s terminology, ‘newsers’ (users who generate news) are becoming a credible, if not-too-soon overpowering, force in online journalism.

So how do we, as future journalists, win back ground from the anarchic wilderness of the web? And how to we stop digital exclusion becoming an issue?

“The age of telling stories is over,” Dr Meadows says. “Journalists will need to have to tell other people’s stories, not just their own.”

Richard Burton lecture

Richard Burton, the latest guest speaker in JOMEC’s online lecture programme, was a regional news reporter for over twenty years before editing telegraph.co.uk, Europe’s first web-based newspaper. He has recently left that position and is currently acting as a consultant and lecturer.

To blog or not to blog.

Why read this blog? Why do I even write this blog? If I’m honest, the answer to the second question is because it is part of my course assessment. I’ll know the answer to first when it has been assessed.

Mr Burton’s long and colourful career in journalism has led him to a similar view to my own regarding blogging. Why do it? What is the point? And who wants to read the ramblings of a trainee journalist anyway?

Mr Burton said: “No one’s interested in your view unless you’re a known quantity. Forget about what you have to say, only about the commodity of the story, not an opinion.”

The internet is flooded with nobodies expressing their opinions. At times looking for my weekly blog of the week can seem like shuffling through a massive pub full of opinionated pissheads.

I don’t care if people are angry because of dog breeds or because of what Erin Davis did.

Mr Burton added: “People are more interested in what Chantelle from Big Brother thinks than me, because she’s a known quantity.”

Here I would disagree with him. After listening for over an hour to the raconteur regale us with journo anecdotes about getting a Hitler moustache from an angry mechanic and leaping fences while being chased out of a one-man country, his experiences certainly have commodity.

Read him call JOMEC "probably the best media school in the land" on his blog.