Podnosh

Prominent voices in the hyperlocal debate gathered at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport today to talk about the changing landscape of news and media and, if anything, what the government should do.

Arranged by Minister for Creative Industries Siôn Simon, and chaired by CEO of GroundReport Rachel Sterne and founder of Talk About Local William Perrin, the conference – called C&binet Seminar – was a collision of talking heads about their experiences and thoughts on the state of local and national news and their plans or predictions for the future of journalism. Those in attendance included Editor-in-chief of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger, Editor of Citizen Journalism at The Huffington Post Matthew Palevsky and Paul Bradshaw from Birmingham City University’s MA in Online Journalism (see a full list of attendees below).

Sessions focused on a number of areas in the debate, introduced with a presentation from those with particular knowledge of a field, and were followed by passionate discussions with attendees drawing on their own research and experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the heated debates which took place at the Talk About Local un-conference ‘09 – a day designed to bring together hyper-local bloggers from across the country to discuss common issues, problems, share ideas and talk about the future – was how council press officers treat local bloggers.

For example, in Sarah Hartley’s recent article for the Guardian, Stoke Council’s head of PR and communications, Dan Barton, said bloggers were excluded from press breifings and the press table in the council chamber. He said:

Opinion should be encouraged but we do draw a distinction between what is news otherwise we are in danger of de-valuing the role of journalists.

Read the rest of this entry »