Sarah Hartley

As announced in the n0tice newsletter earlier this week, there’s a new feature available in the open journalism toolkit to help data journalists – the ability to easily map data contained in a spreadsheet.

Still in beta, it provides an opportunity to play around a bit and see how it might fit into the whole suite of geo-tagging related tools being developed.

Being one of those involved in the team developing this I wanted to get straight onto trying it out so I’ve created a very simple spreadsheet of the locations and opening times of Manchester’s city centre toilets. The data comes from the Data GM store. Creating the spreadsheet took the longest time, the set up and ingestion into the noticeboard probably 10 mins at most. Quick and dirty toilets mapping as it were!

You can see the items and click on items to get a map view here, http://atyourconvenience.n0tice.com but, as n0tice is primarily a mobile experience, the worth of this type of information is more obvious when viewed via the app where users will encounter the information in a serendipitous way due to their proximity to the location. (Alternatively a feed of the info from the api could create something in a different platform or publication.)

If you fancy giving the new spreadsheet feature a go, the instructions on how to get started are here: http://n0tice.org/2013/01/15/how-to-add-spreadsheet-data-to-a-noticeboard the apps to experience the content in your location are free and can be downloaded here.

Involving the local community in your publishing is not just something that’s nice to have, it’s essential if your site is to survive and will will help keep your content relevant.

Many people find it a daunting prospect and it’s probably the number one issue raised during workshops on community publishing – how can people be persuaded to join in?

There’s no getting round the fact that it is hard work – and takes a lot of listening skills – which is why I asked some of those who have proven success in this area to share their advice with you below.

In addition I would add that it is important to be clear about what you are expecting from the users. For example, if you’re looking for pictures of an event, spell out what sort of pictures you’d like to see – and what won’t be acceptable.

There’s nothing worse for a user to enthusiastically provide content which doesn’t get published and then for them to have no idea why it was deemed fit to use. They won’t be so helpful a second time!

So my top tip would be to spend time ensuring the call to action is clear as well as letting people know what will happen – are only ‘the best’ submissions going to be used or will allcomers get mentioned? What’s the criteria for publication? Any restrictions? What about copyright? Payment? Why should a user send you anything? What’s in it for them?

Be upfront about the process and it will help build trust between your users and the publication but most of all – be encouraging, not all those who want to take part will have had any experience and it could be a big step for them to put a piece of work up for public scrutiny and your expert opinion.

Here’s those other top tips from people with know-how in how to get started:

Stuart Golden, managing director of the One&Other magazine and website in York:

Our motto has always been: Share your idea; Involve others; Celebrate often. Beyond that, the most valuable advice I could offer would be to never position yourself as a blogger as that limits your potential in the market.

Without doubt, the thing we’ve found most difficult is finding digital partners that share our vision and ambition, rather than viewing us as just another pay cheque. Thankfully, we found the right people in the end!

Emma Bearman of the influential The CultureVulture blog in the north of England:

Starting out?
Just Do it, set up a blog, audioboo, twitter etc, ask for help
Use it as your license to indulge your inquisitive curious mind
If you can’t be the source, be the resource. By which I mean if you aren’t brilliant at writing/editing etc then shine a light on others, curate, connect, be generous
Be in and part of the conversation
Make connections with the local university journalism course heads and tutors that really get it
Be guided by your moral compass
Love what you do. No point if it ceases to interest or delight you. Don’t let your blog be a monkey on your back
Be open, kind and compassionate. (those are my own mantra)
See the bigger picture
Take time to check your facts, don’t be a kneejerker
Try to leave your ego at the door

Hannah Waldram who started out with a hyperlocal in Birmingham and now works for The Guardian’s community team:

If you’re a one man band don’t try and do everything – spend time thinking about what you want your community blog to do and only create content which you can justify is in line with the spirit and goals of your endeavours

Sean Brady who publishes the Formby First blog and noticeboard offers:

Integrate a n0tice board into your site or blog.
Publish details of specifically local events.
Develop a Twitter account for ‘instant’  streams of short stories, comments,  relevant local links.
Include a Twitter widget in your site. Grow your followers.
Use twitter searches to find local stories, retweet them.
My analytics shows a clear relationship between tweets and page views.

And finally, John Baron of the South Leeds Life blog:

My tip would be to engage in the real world, be seen on your patch, run public meetings and discussions. Show you’re a real person, not just a twitter avatar.

Any other tips to share? Please do feel free to pass on your experiences via the comments below.

• Media Procedure

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Launched today, this new website looks to fill the hole left by the closure of How Do. It’s the latest publishing venture from How-Do’s Nick Jaspan and reflects the thriving media scene here in the north.

Prolific North will become the destination for news, informed opinion, features and of course as much gossip and rumour as you can take about the comings and goings of creative and media companies in the North and their key staff.

In the coming months we will be offering a growing range of support services, enhancing our core news operation and jobs board, launching an innovative classified marketplace, partnering institutions on management development and training and creating a broad spectrum of events and industry initiatives to entertain and inform our readership.

Stories today include news about MCFC’s tweeting fans and BBC5 Live appointments. With so much happening in northern media just now it’s sure to be interesting times.

Take a look here: http://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/

In blogging about Jessops, it’s impossible not to start by expressing sincere sympathies for the staff who’ve just lost their jobs. My problems with their previous employer is nothing compared to the shock and pain they’ll be going through and it was the staff who made that business. Helpful, knowledgeable and passionate photographers, I’ve always valued the service they gave which is why I shopped there.

I just wish I hadn’t shopped there this week.

It all started so ordinary. I’d spent some time over Christmas researching the camera I wanted, got my pressie money ready to go and placed the ‘collect at store’ order to time with a day working in Manchester.

Sadly the Market Street store didn’t have a record of my order when I arrived on Wednesday (despite an email confirmation) but, no worries, they had the model in stock. Boxed and ready to go I was off. A day of meetings meant I didn’t get the chance to try out my new purchase and it was on the drive home I heard the sorry news that Jessops had gone into administration.

Once home, I couldn’t wait to get the camera on charge, opened the box……..ah, no charger or battery. How annoying, plus a minor irritation that the still wrapped camera body seemed to have a scuffed hotfoot.

Thursday was spent being pushed from call centre to post as stressed out staff no doubt attempted to cope with a myriad of customer enquiries and concerns.

As the clouds gathering over Jessops got darker (there was now a no returns policy) I thought my best bet was to take the whole boxed kit with all the paperwork to my local store and hope the staff would see the common sense in handing over a battery charger unit.

They did. Professional as ever they called the Manchester store, a bit of gallows humour banter about jobs passed between them and it was all sorted. I would take the display camera’s battery and charger and Manchester would replenish the store at some future point. All sorted – until I mentioned the scuffed hotfoot.

Taking the camera out of the packaging produced an actual gasp, ‘what is that!!!’. The body unit turns out to be an entirely different model from some years ago and worth about half the value of the model I believed I’d purchased.

Calls were made out of my earshot to the manager of the Manchester store. How could the wrong model have made it into a sealed box and how on earth could they resolve this given the no returns policy?

They couldn’t of course. I called the administrator – his number prominently displayed in store – but no, he had no sense of fair play and would not allow the staff to let me take the display camera as a replacement and no, I couldn’t have a refund.

I called the credit card provider to see if payment could be stopped – no.

So I’m left with an unsuitable camera I don’t want and, even if I did, I can’t use because there’s no battery or charger.

I’m registering as a creditor and of course I shall pursue all routes in an attempt to get a refund but who knows how long that will all take.

If there is a moral in this tale I guess it’s that buying from household names doesn’t mean anything in these dark days and actually shopping online often offers better consumer protection. Oh and – always open the box!

Was I just incredibly unlucky or has anyone else lost out by buying in the dying hours of Jessops?

I made a thing…..

I’d like to think that when I use those four words in the subject line of emails it provokes a little spark of interest in my colleagues (possibly they just evoke a fearful uhoh!) but this time I’ll try it out on you.

The latest ‘thing’ I’ve messed with is an experiment to distribute news from the north into the mobile space using some of the tools available at the platform I’m working with, n0tice.com.

It means that any mobile phone user who has the n0tice.com app downloaded will discover the news headlines and links from their local newspaper to click straight through to the provider to find out the full story, explore their site etc.

It runs off the news organisation’s public RSS feeds with the addition of geo-tagging to the town or city where it is based so – a person walking around Manchester will be able to serendipitously receive news from the MEN, in Newcastle the Journal, Sheffield The Star and so on.

The content is created via the app Feedwax.com and then fed into an online noticeboard which becomes the way the stories are ultimately accessed via a mobile site, Android app or iPhone app.

All of the content can be seen in one go at this noticeboard although it’s unlikely that anyone (perhaps with the exception of journalists for monitoring purposes) would want to view it in that rather random way. Instead, it really is intended for mobile discovery where the location of the user provides the context.
You can download the apps to test it out here – android, iPhone.
Once logged in you can set your location and see all that’s been geotagged around you (notices) or restrict to everything via the Northerner noticeboard (boards).
A few things I learned from doing it:

• some news sites make it really difficult to hunt down the RSS feeds – why? They’re the building blocks for people to make things which have the potential to find new audiences.
• it wasn’t possible to tag the stories to the locations mentioned in the copy due to a lack of geo-tagging at source. This is an area I’m working with on a few different projects (including augmented reality) and one which I’d be interested to hear from anyone looking to incorporate it in their regular journalism work or content management systems.
• The feeds currently included are: The Guardian’s Northerner blog, MEN, Middlesbrough Gazette, Newcastle Chronicle, Liverpool Echo, Lancashire Evening Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, Carlisle News and Star, York Press, Sheffield Star, Northern Echo.
• should it include local blogs? Any newsy-based bloggers out there who’d like to be included, please give me a shout and I’ll add you in. Likewise, anyone currently included who would rather not have their content exposed to a mobile audience – just let me know and I’ll drop it out. It’s an experiment, I don’t want to annoy anyone.

If you’d like a similar thing for your own blog or website – basically it’s like having your own mobile app – the tools used are available to all here www.n0tice.org and I’m on hand to offer some help or advice if needed.

Factors behind successful data journalism teams

A new report from Knight has looked at some of the big players in the data journalism sphere worldwide (BBC. NYT, Guardian, Chicago Tribune and more) to look at the secrets of their success.

The four key findings (ironically distributed in the pdf below) are in summary:

1. Locating the data-journalism team close to the news desk: Members of data journalism teams emphasize that being close to the news desk gives them critical access to editors and reporters as they and the data team develop and plan data-driven news coverage.
2. Encouraging reporters and developers to work together to come up with ideas for data-driven stories: Because developers and reporters often have specialized skill sets, it’s important to bring them together to brainstorm story ideas.
3. Recruiting reporters and developers who bridge the skills gap: Find or develop people who can work as journalists and developers on your data journalism team.
4. Producing stories that show what data mean and why the audience should care: Data-driven stories about topics affecting the lives of news consumers produce impact and drive Web traffic.

Integrating data journalism in the newsroom by

(nearly) 500 ways to introduce yourself to the local FOI officer

Data journalist Claire Miller has come up with this cracking list of ideas for story prompts on Freedom of Information – everything from the cost of training days for councillors to the number of forced adoptions.

This list needs bookmarking – on the office wall!

Don’t forget there’s advice about formulating FOI requests and an easy, transparent system which helps cut down on duplication to make the application at WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

Responsive Web Design on the agenda
The Digital Editors’ Network (DEN) is hosting an event looking at RWD or to put it simply – design that works across a variety of devices – in Preston next month.
Introducing the session, the François Nel, Director of the Journalism Leaders Programme, says:
“Sure, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the approach to web design that intends to provide an optimal viewing experience — easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling — across a wide range of devices from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones. But we’ll also be thinking more laterally about what Responsive Design means.”

The free event includes an in-depth case study from MNA Digital development manager Mark Cadman and electronic editor Abigail Edge who led the team that charted the Express and Star and Shropshire Star’s route to responsive web design will be lifting the lid on that innovative project – and how their efforts have paid off.

#ResponsiveDEN Digital Editors Network Winter 2013 meetup is on Thursday 21 February from 12:45 PM to 6:30 PM at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston. Tickets need to be booked here.

Crisis? Help at hand in York
Former BBC chief media spokesperson Donald Steel has been confirmed as the keynote speaker at a leading business event in York this spring, reports OneandOther.
Donald Steel was, for 11 years, the BBC’s chief media spokesperson, where he handled some of the most prominent media stories of the decade, from the murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando and a terrorist bomb attack on BBC Television Centre, to the Hutton Inquiry.

The evening lecture, Crisis Communications – an investment in company value, will be held at the Hospitium in York on Thursday 7th March 2013 at Museum Gardens. Tickets cost £15+VAT for IoD members and £25+VAT for non-members.Book at the IoD website.

Opportunities and challenges in Manchester
Insight Thirteen from Don’t Panic is a one-day seminar with lunch that takes place at The Studio, Lever Street in Manchester on Friday 25 January 2013 between 10am – 4.10pm.
The event will examine potential opportunities and challenges for 2013 and will feature leading industry speakers from the digital, marketing and communication arenas sharing their insights on trends they believe these sectors will see in the coming year. Each speaker will give a thirty-minute overview presentation and then join an interactive Q & A panel session.Tickets here.

 MEN goes ‘more local’

The Manchester Evening News has changed its edition structure to offer readers two editions for the vast Greater Machester region – north and south.

Explaining the changes, a short posting on Monday says the change will give readers ‘a greater focus on the area where you live.’

This includes a front page dedicated to your area and specific pages inside with all the latest local news and information for where you live.

And it helpfully provided these two screen grabs showing the difference.

Readers were, as ever, quick to comment on the changes and raise the issue of localness.

 Ecclescake noting:

 Theoretically, a brilliant idea and one to be commended. It’s great to see the MEN thinking of new ways to survive.

That said, it seems to me that the only way to really get into the heart of communities is to be there. Properly immerse yourself in the communities. I know that’s easier said than done, particularly with the industry in the pickle it is and the lack of resources available to you.

But if this change means anything, then allow your reporters the time and space to work their patches!

The changes announced yesterday also include a revamp of CityLife, a new column on matters of faith and the old favourite – ‘a trip down memory lane every Monday and Tuesday with pages of photos from yesteryear.’

 

Talking of Manchester…..

The Guardian has released a new way of looking at its ‘most interesting’ content – using algorithms to  measure interestingness by “a number of social signals including; incoming links, shares around social media, view count, editorial selection, number of comments and positive deviation from the norm for an article in its particular section.”

You may well expect the Guardianista’s would be most interested in social issues, Leveson or press freedom but it’s interesting to note just how often northern football stories – particularly both Manchester clubs – pop up in the ‘most interesting’.

Football fans’ online promiscuity is well-known but does that entirely explain what’s happening there?

Now the the once Manchester-based national’s staffing has reduced to just one full time northern based journalist (the newly appointed, hard-working editor Helen Pidd) it’s hard to know what conclusion to draw from that. Does the location of those producing the news actually matter much? Would those figures be even higher with a northern based news and sports desk pounding the beat?

Leeds’ Richard Horsman considers this question in a radio context where news ‘hubs’ have become commonplace over boots on the ground.

Writing at The CultureVulture, ‘So what is ‘Local’ news anyway’  he says:

 The flip side is local knowledge, which tends to dilute across a bigger patch. Woe betide anyone talking to Bradford who pronounces Keighley as ‘keely’ or Allerton as anything other than ‘ollerton’. Old time district reporters are also more likely to recognise the names on the New Year honours list and have some clue why they’ve earned a gong beyond ‘services to education’ or ‘the arts’

 

What do you think? Can maths get the job done or is all this talk of hubs and centralisation doing reader a disservice? Love to hear your views.

Leeds Trinity job for Splash’s Gaby
News this morning that the sports presenter Gaby Logan will be taking on a new role at Leeds Trinity.

Delighted to reveal that the first Chancellor of @leedstrinity University is Gabby Logan; hear her on @bbcleeds with @johnnyianson later.

— Richard Horsman (@leedsjourno) January 7, 2013

 

A group of our journalism students will be with @gabby_logan in the #LeedsTrinity TV studio today – she’s the university’s first Chancellor

— Catherine O’Connor (@journochat) January 7, 2013

Prescott weighs in at The Sunday Mirror
Former Hull East  MP and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has joined the Sunday Mirror as what’s described as “a hard-hitting columnist who will pull no punches.”
In a press release from the company issued on Friday, John Prescott said:

I know the power of good, campaigning journalism. Pauline and I have read the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror for decades so I’m honoured to be given the chance to talk with the readers every week.

Lloyd Embley, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, said: “John is a colourful character who has been right at the heart of British politics for over 40 years.
“Importantly, he is a Mirror man through and through so his political insight and sensitivity coupled with his no nonsense approach will resonate well with our readers.”

Refresh Teesside January cancelled
This Wednesday’s Refresh Teesside event has been called off – but the monthly neworking event will be back in February, Organisers have contacted attendees to say: “This relates to venue problems which we are in the process of resolving.”