currybetdotnet Regional press archive
'Identity' at The Wellcome Colection
A visit to the Identity exhibition at The Wellcome Collection was the first time I've seen 'blog comments' appear as part of an exhibition.
Council coverage in local newspapers: Waltham Forest and Romford
Sarah Hartley has been using the 'Help me investigate' crowd-sourced journalism tool to find out how local newspapers cover local councils. I've chipped in with a review of coverage in the Waltham Forest Guardian and the Romford Recorder.
Don't put Johnston Press on trial over their paywall experiment
Don't put Johnston Press on trialYou might not think local paywalls will work, but you can't blame Johnston Press for trying.
"My first term" - a seventies pull-out in a noughties local paper?
I'm the kind of person who still buys a local paper, and this week in the Waltham Forest Guardian I noticed a feature I found distinctly odd. "My First Term" is an 8 page pull-out compiling school classroom pictures from a variety of nearby local authorities. The geographical range covered is quite wide, including Walthamstow, Woodford Green, Loughton and Waltham Abbey. Initially, I couldn't help but be surprised that, in these days of media paedosteria, the paper was trying to...
"Actor in Muswell Hill UFO Sighting Mystery!"
Having written a few posts recently about the potential impact of local council publications on the local press in London, I have to confess that sometimes, when I see what is making the billboards belonging to the Muswell Hill Journal, I can understand why Haringey Council think they need their own magazine as well...!...
'Local newspaper week' - The local council publicity machine
During 'Local newspaper week', I wrote about the impact of local council newspapers on the commercial press. This led to some really interesting comments, and as a result I surveyed the publications produced by London's Boroughs. A quarter of them are at least fortnightly, and over 70% of them take commercial advertising, including giving away free classified listings in one instance, and yet the LGA insists that they do not compete. Another reason that I struggle to buy the necessity...
'Local newspaper week' - Council newspapers in London
"H&F News is Hammersmith & Fulham's leading newspaper, with more readers, more news and more influence than any other paper. If you are looking for a way to reach homes across Fulham, Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush which is cost effective and reliable, then look no further. 87,000 copies of H&F News are delivered monthly to homes across the borough - more than any other local media." That must sound pretty attractive to an advertiser trying to target the local area....
'Do online newspapers have a future in a Digital Britain' - MTM London round-table session
I mentioned yesterday that I went to a round table panel session this week hosted by MTM London. Entitled 'Do online newspapers have a future in a Digital Britain', it was held under the Chatham House Rule, which rather precludes me writing it up as fully as I normally would. Instead I've picked out some unattributed quotes from the evening... [1] "People are cynical about single brands, and don't want to be spoon-fed" The point was made that people are...
'Local Newspaper Week' - Being local...
This week has been, according to the Newspaper Society, 'Local Newspaper Week'. It seemed like an opportune moment to blog about some of the things I've noticed about my local newspapers since I moved to Muswell Hill. I've been collecting clippings and pictures of the Muswell Hill Journal and Ham & High Broadway since October, and so far this week I've blogged about advertising, some of the issues around local democracy and the potential impact of the local council's own...
'Local Newspaper Week' - Council newspapers
Between the 11th and 17th May, the Newspaper Society has been promoting 'Local Newspaper Week'. To coincide with this, I've been blogging about some of the things I've noticed about my local newspapers since moving into Muswell Hill last October. So far I've looked at advertising, and at some of the issues around local democracy. Local council newspapers The business model of the regional press is under severe strain. Not only is the economic situation affecting display advertising, but the...
'Local Newspaper Week' - Democracy
For 'Local Newspaper Week' I've been looking at some of the things I've noticed about my local press in Muswell Hill since I moved there back in October. Yesterday I was looking at some issues around advertising. Today I wanted to look at local democracy. One of the principle reasons for ensuring that our regional media survives the current economic climate is because of the diligent role they play in attending council meetings, court proceedings, and holding local organisations like...
'Local Newspaper Week' - Advertising
This week it is the Newspaper Society's 'Local Newspaper Week'. I'm writing a series of blog posts looking at some of the things I've noticed about my local newspapers over the last few months, in print and online. Today I wanted to look a little at the advertising in my local press. Births, deaths and adverts One of the traditional areas of revenue generation for the local newspaper was the 'announcements' page, where people paid to publicly announce births, deaths...
'Local Newspaper Week' - Welcome to your new local...
This week the Newspaper Society is promoting 'Local Newspaper Week'. The aim is to highlight the valuable links that our UK regional press provide with their communities. I've been collecting some clippings and screen-shots from several regional papers in print and online over the last few months, and so it seemed an appropriate week to start blogging about them. Welcome to your new local... I came back to London in October last year, and, being a newspaper kind of guy,...
JEEcamp 2009 round-up
I had a great time at JEEcamp in Birmingham on Friday, at what was a really interesting 'unconference' around the theme of Journalism Enterprise and Experimentation. "JEEcamp is an opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we've learned so far." The day started in a surreally bemusing fashion for me as...
Interview with a Scott Trust Bursary student - Helia Phoenix
I mentioned earlier this week that I had been to a lunch that formed part of an 'Insight into Journalism Day' at The Guardian. Whilst I was there, as well as meeting some Guardian journalists and some of the visiting students, I met Helia Phoenix, one of the recipients of this year's Scott Trust Bursaries. I got to ask her some questions about why she wants to move into journalism, and her attitudes to news in print and online. @currybet:...
Are Ofcom's regional news funding proposals an opportunity for the local press?
Thinking further about yesterday's document from Ofcom, it seems to me that the issues around regional public service news provision highlight all the things that are wrong with the current regulatory framework. We are living in a converged media ecosphere. Radio stations, for example, are delivered over FM, DAB, Freeview, Sky and the Internet. Television stations put their news online, and when they do so, are indistinguishable from newspapers, who are now running their own online TV channels. The audience...
President Obama coverage on the UK's regional press websites
President Obama coverage on the UK's regional press websites
A look at how the 20 regional websites I've been reviewing covered the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Local search: Seeing the UK's regional press through the eyes of Google
I've been writing a series of posts looking at site search across some of the UK's leading regional papers. Yesterday I published a table of their features. In this last part of the series, I want to take a slightly different approach. I'm looking not at how people can search for content on the sites themselves, but how the sites appear when people search for them in Google. Google 'Search-in-search' Norfolk's Eastern Daily Press site was the only site...
Local search: Using site search in regional press websites - Part 4
Over the last 3 days I've been looking at the site search services provided across the 20 regional newspaper sites that I have been studying. The quality of the services varied widely, from a site like EDP24 basically begging the user to go off and try Google News instead, to the 'This is...' network of sites providing a sophisticated faceted filtering mechanism. Today I wanted to publish a couple of table featuring a summary of some of my findings...
Local search: Using site search in regional press websites - Part 3
This week I've been writing a series of posts looking at the site search facilities provided by some of the UK's leading regional newspapers. Eastern Daily Press The EDP24 site has a very small search box located in the very top right-hand side of the homepage. This is labelled with an image that says 'News Database', and is titled 'Story search'. When the results page initially loads, it is hard to see any results, as there are three large...
Local search: Using site search in regional press websites - Part 2
Local search: Using site search in regional press websites - Part 1
Local social: Contextual help for social bookmarking in the UK's regional press
Local social: Social bookmarking links in the UK's top regional papers - Part 2
Local social: Social bookmarking links in the UK's top regional papers - Part 1
Local RSS: Google Reader subscriber numbers for the UK's top regional papers
Local RSS: What do the leading regional newspapers offer? - Part 2
Local RSS: What do the leading regional newspapers offer? - Part 1
Local online news video - where do we go from here?
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"Journalism in the digital age"
I'll be appearing on a panel with Sarah Hartley and Iain Hepburn at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on Sunday April 11th. More details...
Posts of the moment
Day of the Triffids
If everyone suddenly went blind, how long would the Internet survive, and could you still publish news on it?
With professionals of this quality, who needs 'citizen journalist' enemies?
It is hard to argue that ethics and quality set the 'professional journalist' apart from the amateur blogger, if the 'professional' keeps publishing articles so wrong that they have to be deleted.
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- Site search management and design
- Working at the BBC (2000 - 2005)
- Working at The Guardian (2008 - now)
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Contact: martin dot belam at currybet dot net. © Martin Belam where appropriate.
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