Part 1 – Pedalling The Raw Data

This feature began with a simple observation, I’d started hearing and reading more news stories where cyclists had been involved in accidents. This interested me because I had been cycling into work. Working at Metro Newspapers at Fort Dunlop, I considered pitching a story to Birmingham Post about commuter cycling so I filed a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request on road deaths involving cyclists in the West Midlands.

When I started this course I began to think about different ways in which story could be told. My FOI request came through and I decided to map the deaths. I felt mapping could graphically represent the accidents which would help cyclists think about how they ride in that area. However, my FOI request had a significant flaw, the accidents were not located.

I put the FOI on the HashBrum site alongside the map and set about trying to find the accident locations via news stories and police reports. I also launched an investigation on Help Me Investigate.

“The first step in community organizing is to listen… you show that you are willing to not only listen to other voices in your online community, but to amplify them. That takes you into the second step in community organizing, building relationships.”(Niles)

I responded to each comment and I hope I succeeded in what Axel Bruns would call “dialogic, coversational, unfinished news” (2005, 53.) People showed me other experiments that were taking place, other data that was available and successful national mash-up maps.

I was encouraged by the different experiments taking place but they all stopped short of what I wanted for HashBrum. Dave Harte showed me a mash-up created by Times Online made from data which had been passed to me the day before. In December, I was shown a UK Crash Map on the BBC site. They were expansive but I wanted something more local and with more detail.

I was told about a similar investigation that was taking place in New York but no results had been mapped. Hannah Waldram was inspired by my experiment and launched a similar Help Me Investigate for Cardiff which I duly joined.

“Digital age journalism is now also interactive. Until recently it was a one-way process… this is no longer the case. Discussion and debate over all kinds of issues is enhanced by the digital age.” (Herbert 2000, 2)

I also received attention from the cycling community in Birmingham, including CTC and Birmingham Cyclist Blog and they both started following me on Twitter. One person who runs the Birmingham bike forum also contacted me in the New Year when a cyclist was involved in a serious collision in Solihull; I worked this fact into my story.

However, I was frustrated that I, or anyone else for that matter, couldn’t find the older news stories to corroborate the FOI stats I had. I spotted another US site called Bikewise they seemed to have access to full police reports.

I went hunting for other data. I discovered a site called SMIDSY (Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You) a campaign launched by the Cycle Touring Club (CTC) which encouraged cyclists to report near misses and even get legal advice. I asked the administrator if I could access their data, they refused but were encouraging about the investigation. They offered some tips such as ‘the cycling community prefers using the terms crash or collision rather than accident.’

I decided the only data I could use was the UK government statistics. I decided I could marry the Birmingham pinpoints up with some of the missing FOI accidents. Following our mapping lesson I looked into ways put these stats on a map and then limit it to the Birmingham area.

I launched another task using Help Me Investigate and spent many hours converting the stats to Longitude and Latitude and trying different sites that could accept a large amount of data. I tried Mapalist, Many Eyes, Google Earth Pro but I couldn’t convert them. I contacted @Psychemedia a mash-up specialist but couldn’t get it to work. When I disappeared into the world of Python I had to give up.

Find out how I got back on my bike in part two.

These are ‘as live’ notes from the second part of the Association Of Online Publishers (AOP) Microlocal Media Forum which took place on 9th December. At the very bottom of this post there is also a recording which caught all of Roger Green’s presentation and most of the panel discussion.

Click here for AOP’s own round up of the event or here for Paid Content’s article.

AOP Microlocal Media Forum Part 2
Presentation: Roger Green Newsquest

Speaking for himself not necessarily Newsquest (NQ)
Current media model more robust than given credit for – lots of things tried over the last few years
Nevertheless NQ now compete with zero cost players

NQ cover 150 sites who have alligence with local
Use media brands they have run through central system at local level: enablers for local people
Engaging with audience they have grown consistently
Amount of time people spend interacting
Websites but also telephone calls and texting
Westmorland Gazette: huge growth in audience significant spike when news event kicks off – ie. recent flood coverage

Big challenge= less dictating and more collaborative process
Very hard to motivate community correspondence – fill newsgathering and information gaps – channel needs to be worked hard. In Bingley, Betty Newell is the local contact works information

Involving people in more of the stories that matter, Basildon Echo (Basildon Uni Hospital story) 15 significant comments added to the story by the time it wound down 60 comments which moved narrative on
Compared to BBC local story couple of interviews were getting recycled so didn’t really engage with evolving story
NHS project attempting to bring together information – but only a few comments since 2007

Can do local without news – very brave according to RG
Almost all of it catefully integrated – geocoded – doing more than is appreciated
Newpapers to local regional media brands

Adoption of Twitter – Cover It Live
Watford Observer: @Observer_Owl
Turfed out of office and worked remotely routinely work out of cafes: cafes approve good cache from it
Get more local stories out of it
Won’t claim every editorial group as equally adept at taking on these tools
Lancashire used Twitter anti-terrorist movement via Twitter
Brighton: Jo Wadsworth leading field in terms of followers to following therefore she listens as well as talks

Tactics for Publishers
Adopt tools and use effectively
Make up own mind but don’t be disco dad: nothing that is zero cost can be sustainable – make up mind on what matters ignore everything else
Geocoding not always necessary, must be relevant to story
Observe decent analytics
Be commercial – not just about journalism even not a lot, publishing, distribution and sales
Be prepared to partner- Bloggers can be ‘upset by partner arrangements’ especially if on terms of the partner – partnerships need to behave in humble fashion
Not sustainable don’t bother: no point in a shiny local website launched by a publisher around one news event. Hardly any coverage of major news events, even worse covered better in Wall St Journal
If already have some great local media brands then maybe not worth launching at all

Two way conversation – but no-one found a decent way of monetizing e-mail
Based around popular social networks: Scope to get more out of community correspondence – open to talk to anyone ’we can help monetize that type of publishing’

Roger Green ‘Look forward to partnering or taking you on’

Q&A Discussion

Panel
David Higgerson: Trinity Mirror
James Thornett : BBC Local
Lori Cunningham Johnston Press
Roger Green: Newsquest
Paul Bradshaw: BCU Lecturer Help Me investigate

What new skills need in micro local:
LC: Curration and oversight and a two way dialogue to bring forward
JT: Curration much more aware of market out there, awareness of local personalities – less about the brand and the company more about the people themselves
DH: Much more aware of impact of what they say and way say it. Journalists more open minded about the way to tell the story
PB: Social capital – contributing to their community being a participant. Understand distribution networks. Distribution part of journo’s role
RG: Can’t really add. Listening very important skill and distribution – related links to things

Struck idea of platform how people produce outside whether it’s a priority. Predicated on whether there is a destination but the assumption people won’t go to specific site…

RG: look for places to pick up content as feeds. Most people who use sites are regular users

Paywall
LC: not one approach – it’s an evolving landscape, people are arriving through different manner. More consistent loyal users. As an experiment we’ve put 3 titles behind pay wall. Understand what dynamics are, quickest way to measure dynamic is to try it out.

Whether panel do pay to get information
LC: Wall St Journal
JT: No
PB: Bearded Magazine
RG: worth looking into Telegraph used to subscribe to Wall St Journal then Murdoch said would be free so never renewed.

Partnerships: are you going to pay for information from other sources
RG: Almost other way round with bigger companies in NQ experience. We do pay for information.
DH: Case by case basis.
LC: Fragmented network partnership which works with person.

What assurances do you have that BBC not threatening competition for local publishers?
JT: BBC local broadcasting as the state funded broadcaster are funded to deliver what the UK want. UK popular website, whole ecosystem would work together. BBC do have a sizeable audience in terms of traffic. We are in the same space, find a way to make ecosystem work.

Whether BBC are against pay wall?
LC: We have a viable parntership with BBC. But we see them as a threat. Well funded organisation coming into an area or two guys in a garage. There’s no easy path forwards.
RG: Wouldn’t add to that. Except to observe if not for BBC we’d all be working for Google.
PB: BBC if pulled out of local would be accused as ’London centric’ Needs to justify licence fee. Would like to BBC adding in certain areas. Similar to what PA doing.
DH: Would like to see BBC come good and link back to content.
JT: BBC local are county level publishing – not local on the internet. Works well for us.

Chris PA: Can you monetize atomised news?
PB: No don’t think you can. Have to look what people use news for. Distribution channels are quite high, difficult to make money no point buying in atomised news. Can’t charge for stickers in playground.
JT: BBC will look at buying picture or video.
DH: Could do better at following up people who lift content word for word. Sunday Mercury does need to chase. Maybe go after the sites that take that copy.

What about people who have blogs who don’t want to be citizen journalists still worth partnerships?
DH: Could work more closely with local sites. Exploring partnerships and what can give back. Perception that newspaper websites are nicking content from hyper local or papers considering sites are run by ‘sid nutters’ – Will Perrin.

Local versus location – is there a difference in definition?
PB: Yes. Legacy issues of local publishing. Online 3rd of audience is from outside area or people who used to live in the area. Opportunity to capitalise on that. Newspapers haven’t done a lot around monetizing ’location’.
LC: Of great interest. Looking to evolve something along these lines. Make sure syndicated commercial opportunities. Our publishing experience used to defined by geography not the case online. Bring those people together across boundaries.
JT: Trap not to fall into, unique set of location interests and personal interests spread across the country. The next step is personalisation of a set of content through mobile devices and small laptops disseminating news specific to location.

Advertising revenue stream, how demonstrate to advertisers money is well spent?
LC: Process of rolling out idea. How getting people to engage with sites how people coming to us. Thinking traditionally – build up local database not had before.
DH: Area need to explore more. Lot of advertising know going to business community. Northumberland- long ago trailing Addiply coming back time and time again. Now seeing more good than bad examples.
RG: The advertising we do carry is pretty accountable enough. Methods of selling if we were to sell for micro local.

16.50

You can right click ‘save target’ for the MP3 here or you can listen to it below.

Part one can be found here.

We did intend to live blog this event via Cover It Live but unfortunately we couldn’t get onto the Olswang Wi-Fi or get a mobile signal for a dongle. Instead I made notes in Word and rushed them online in the interval. The event now been covered elsewhere so I’ve decided to keep the notes in a relatively raw format. At the end of this post is this part recorded it-its-entirety.

Sarah Hartley Presentation
Definition of microlocal
Reasons why microlocal exists – technology and closure of local papers
In US quote from Techcrunch: “Hyperlocal sites are becoming a hot commodity”

Examples in UK
Daily Mail – Local People
conversations community gossip rather than small news sites

Foming collaborations
CN group recuiiting citizen journalists – Carlisle get share of advertising on pages

ITN proposing grand alliance – hoping for topslice money from BBC licence

PA are looking into Public Service Reporting pilot (wire service for courts and councils)
Free to anybody for public subsidy

The Guardian :beat blogger

Financial return
Trinity Mirror exploring hyperlocal advertising in the North East
And paywalls

Second trend
Public organising themselves
Collaborating for investigations: crowd sourcing
And some getting fuinding from 4iP

They Work For You
Anything you want to know on local or national Mps.

VentnorBlog
Cover local council meetings – husband and wife team

Help Me Investigate
Investigate issues – using technology to change activity

The Culture Vulture
What do you want? Backstage access that you might normally get

Live events
People’s Voice Media across many media in NW
Salford TV

Pull Jeff Jarvis quote ‘ecosystem of many players with varying motives’

Opportunities
Potential for new partnerships
Possibility of state subs funding
Creation of new revenue streams/business models

14.48
Presentation: Paul Bradshaw
Monetising micro local

No one is selling content – What are they selling?
Platform: About My Area – pay to have hyper local platform
Ads: half hyper local efforts are selling adverts – more using Addiply service
Services: Talk About Local blog itself not making money effectively – helping authorities and PR services and unions with Social Media strategy
Products: t-shirts mugs events BiNS

Low cost = low profits
Multiple revenue streams – print is high cost entry and high profits so spread out streams – NY blog quarter comes from events
New effiiciencies – collaborating with audience process as product broker audience and vendor
New advertising models – based on performance big per thousand people click or complete a sale – Goggle sells on performance
Legacy as handicap

Decoupling + end of monopoly
People never paid for news they paid for package
Niche advertising separate from prices
Platform already paid for
Membership – engage in that online community
Convenience
The 90 degree shift – moving from vertical to horizontal – spend 3 hours 40 on community sites- 2 minutes on newspaper- starting to engage with online communities

Independent’s view
Networked approach – being covered elsewhere I won’t cover it. Link is the content
Process as product – activity of going around area becomes content
Quality not quantity – spend a week on it because think it’s worth more

15.04

You can right click ‘save target’ for the MP3 here or you can listen to it below.

Part two can be found here.

I was at 24Carrots on Saturday and bumped into two producers asking for our opinions on BBC 6Music. I was more than happy to be filmed as 6Music is my favourite radio station.

I’ve been listening ever since I got a digital radio for Christmas 6 years ago and pretty much like every show they do (except George Lamb – and I’m not even going to hyperlink that!) but a final thing occurred to me later on that I’d like to share.

I have this theory that Britpop wouldn’t have happened if Radio 1 hadn’t brought in the changes they made under Matthew Bannister. The most important element wasn’t the notorious clearing of DJ dead wood (which is incidentally why I dislike Lamb, I remember Simon Bates) but the re-invigoration of the playlist. Suddenly eloquent intelligent pop was being listened to by a mainstream audience. Of course it still had to strike a national chord but it was listened to.

I met Mark Riley (AKA The ‘Hapless’ Boy Lard) at Depercussion Festival in Manchester a few years back and told him how much I liked his 6music show. He was appreciative of my praise but added “Yeah. but it should be on Radio 1 shouldn’t it…”

Many people of my generation have a soft spot for Mark (Radcliffe) and Lard but it wasn’t just their sense of humour or deep respect for music but also the breadth of art and literature covered in the show. In fact many people I know have favourite comedians, poets and writers that can be traced back to Mark And Lard. Bannisters changes elevated art to be discussed on air even giving some airtime to comedy shows in their own right for the likes of Collins And Maconie, Lee And Herring – paving the way for the superb Blue Jam by Chris Morris.

I know radio’s changed and we’re now all filtering our way through our own personalised schedules these days but there’s something to be said for a broad range of interesting art to be available on the mainstream. Bringing arts and comedy shows onto 6music might be moving away from the ‘music’ part of their edict. So where else do we go for our cultural spark? Is it Radio 4 or should it be Radio 1?

I recently headed off to the BBC to hear Nic Newman present his paper ‘The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism’. They recorded the session so you might want to keep an eye on Reuters site for a better recording.

You can right click ‘save target’ for the MP3 here or listen below.

The discussion took place in the chamber facing a picture of Lord Reith which the chair points out at the beginning. Some notes and live twittering to accompany this talk can be found at Caroline Beavon’s site. This is the post from Chiara Bolognini.