Craig McGinty

Help with planning a news website

Looking to start a news based website? Read these two articles first:

How to launch your own local news site in 10 (not so easy) steps

A network infrastructure for journalists online

The first will get you thinking abut the financial side of things, the second explains how to find news sources and content ideas to ensure you have plenty to write about.

Getting close to website readers and advertisers

Readers and advertisers have more choices online now. They're looking for conviction, not convenience. News publishers need to offer their communities more to entice them to engage, to subscribe and to advertise.

via OJR: Online Journalism Review

In the past newspapers were one of the best social networkers, bringing readers together and ensuring businesses were placed in front of local customers.

Robert Niles in his piece quoted above, Engagement is the key to winning back readers and advertisers, looks at some of the reasons why this connection has been broken.

And while Robert aims his thoughts and ideas at newspaper groups, I think much of what he writes can be used by many of the local online news services that have recently popped up.

Being involved in the comments section, working with advertisers, highlighting the smallest of groups and shining a light on the work of others will give local sites a competitive advantage over the websites published by larger newspaper groups.

This is because the people behind many of the local websites are living in the area already and have friends and contacts which they have a strong connection with.

Many site owners are there for the long term as well, the staff turnover levels in newspapers offices would make you dizzy, so again this advantage can enable a presence to be built up.

If your site becomes the place that helps people with their questions, enables them to grow their business and makes readers feel they are part of a community both online and off then your own work will be spread far and wide.

Use YouTube to host audio interviews

IF you are keen to offer audio interviews to readers of your website here is a simple way to use YouTube to do all the heavy lifting and save you the shock of an expensive hosting bill.

Using a video editing package, something like Windows Movie Maker will be fine, gather together your audio recording, a couple of photographs of your interviewee and maybe a screengrab or two of their website (see the above example).

Create a new project, lay down the sound, and slide the images in so that they fill the time of the interview, then intro and outro the project with short simple captions.

Save the project as a movie and then upload it to your YouTube account, tag it with a few keywords, provide a short explanation of the video and put a link back to your own site.

Once YouTube has finished processing the video, embed it in a new article and all your hosting worries are taken care of.

It's a two-way street this internet stuff

ONE of the biggest errors newspapers have made in recent years is to forget that they are part of a community.

In the past newspapers were often at the centre of things, so every cough and sniff was covered, which is what readers wanted, and still do.

Over the years newspapers put barriers between themselves and their readers, in a physical sense many local offices were closed and in a community sense they began to ignore and dismiss what readers were doing.

The internet has now made it possible for 'birds of a feather to flock together' and so local community groups and organisations no longer need newspapers in the same way as the past.

Unfortunately few newspaper management teams have broken out of the newsroom and looked to engage with these groups online, and been what many call a platform, Jeff Jarvis describes how magazines could provide this.

But when newspapers do try to use some of these new tools and online destinations, they still only look to use them to 'push' content out to readers - blissfully unaware that they are in a push'n'pull world, one where communities and individuals are sharing and helping each other.

A case in point this morning is the use of Twitter by the Lancashire Evening Post (LEP) as it looks to source comment from people who experienced an earthquake that shook homes across the north of England.

They sent out a tweet saying: "A minor earthquake has been felt in Fleetwood, Thornton and in north Lancashire - anywhere else folks? Please email [email protected]"

And Twitter is a good way of picking up feedback and comment from people, but it works both ways.

Since the beginning of April the LEP twitter account has sent out around 30 messages, a mix of automated headlines, tweets to get people to buy the newspaper and the odd joke or observation.

It replied to one other person on Twitter in an attempt to get a story, but didn't forward the comments, or retweet, any messages from the local Preston community in that time.

And newspapers wonder why they are being ignored, its a two-way street remember.

Want to see how an organisation uses Twitter effectively? Follow the Dogs Trust.

Providing opportunity for independent publishers

Hello AudioBoo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.
IF freelancing wasn't already a horribly precarious profession, the news that The Sun and The Times are cutting dramatically their freelance pay scales really should be a wake up call.

For a long time now I have stressed to every freelancer I've met that whilst I wouldn't recommend jumping ship and starting your own online project straight away, look seriously at ways to slowly transfer from writing for others to creating your own online publication in a field that interests you and that you know well.

Freelancers often have a particular subject area they are good at, but even if they don't they still live somewhere and so bringing journalism skills to cover a postcode patch may be something to consider.

This was the outline for a bit of a gathering earlier this week in London organised by Rick Waghorn and described as a meeting of Very Independent Publishers, Rick's write up is here (also see Shane Richmond's post).

During the evening there was a feeling that if a package of tools is made available, Rick used the analogy of a brew kit, people could make their choice of what to use and make a pint of bitter or lager; then again it could be a glass of red or white wine.

The package would be blog based, with the opportunity to publish audio and video interviews at the click of a button, whilst also offering an advertising option to local businesses.

What was being stressed throughout was that it should be a simple package that gave individuals the choice to pick and choose the tools they wanted to use.

Ultimately you want journalists to be out and about reporting, as this is where the stories, the characters and connections are found not via press releases on company websites.

And what could an operation like this look like? Also there on the night was Simon Perry of the Ventnor Blog and James Hatts of the LondonSE1 website, take a click around.

Will social media break the back of newspapers?

IT is always interesting when you get a flurry of stories from others you follow either via RSS or on Twitter that you can knit together.

I followed a link from journalism lecturer Mark Comerford that highlighted a report on the use of the internet by US newspapers.

The yearly offering from The Bivings Group showed that more newspapers were embracing social media such as bookmarking tools, opening up comments and accepting content from readers.

Stopped under S.44 of the Terrorism Act 2000

AND we are meant to feel safer, more secure, with these laws in place? Filmed by Terence Eden this morning (August 19) at Waterloo Station and I suppose the only saving grace is that the police didn't confiscate the camera. Although it makes you wonder how long that 'right' will be enjoyed.

Spending time on a website

ONE of the metrics that is an important measure amongst website publishers is the time that readers spend on a site.

So it was interesting to see (via Paul Bradshaw) a piece about the problems US newspapers face holding on to readers for any length of time.

Whilst at the same time the Daily Telegraph reports that Facebook is set to become the most popular website in the UK - with Britons spending 2.4 billion minutes on the website.

Newspapers are no longer competing against just other newspapers, but the fact that people are just a link, search request or email message away from other websites.

Online investigative journalism does exist

ONE of the things that defenders of newspapers repeat often is that moving online will mean the end of any form of investigative journalism.

I've never really agreed with that because now that blogs and other publishing tools are freely available anyone can follow and study a subject, bringing real insight into a issue and thanks to comments and search provide real depth.

One of the best examples of that is Ben Goldacre's Bad Science website and whilst he writes for The Guardian the work he highlights being produced by others shows that errors and untruths are being examined by people often more qualified than journalists.

For example, in today's column he covers how determined bloggers blew the whistle on a supposed 'miracle cure' for dyslexia.

Maybe newspapers have got to start looking beyond the newsroom and work with knowledgeable and passionate individuals, aiming to link up with other groups and bloggers in the community.

Google Maps at the Manchester Evening News

A GREAT example of "crowd sourcing" from the Manchester Evening News with their use of Google Maps to pin point problem spots on the roads.

Take a look at Manchester Traffic Problems - I even noticed one local councillor had registered a complaint.

Would be interesting to re-mix the information so you could plot the worst areas by post code to highlight those people suffering the most, or whether particular traffic troubles are more common in one area.