Going up, going down: The end of the of the football season in newspaper front pages

Nobody covers a football club quite like the local newspaper. The highs and the lows, the frustrations and the delights (with the sports desk normally being blamed for the former by readers, but rarely thanked for the latter). So it’s no surprise that when the not-quite-life-and-death matters of promotion and relegation are dealt with, the football normally passes from the back page to the front page.

With the last play off in the bag (well done Crewe), here’s a round-up of how regional papers covered the success, or otherwise, of their teams

Premier League

Champions: Manchester City

Title: Manchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

Premier League

18th place (relegated): Bolton

Title: Bolton News

Praying for a miracle before the game ... The Bolton News

Praying for a miracle before the game … The Bolton News

and after…

... and after relegation was confirmed

… and after relegation was confirmed

Premier League

19th place (relegated): Blackburn

Title: Lancashire Telegraph

The Lancashire Telegraph

The Lancashire Telegraph

Premier League

20th place (relegated): Wolves

Titles: Birmingham Mail and the Wolverhampton Express and Star

The Black Country edition of the Birmingham Mail

The Black Country edition of the Birmingham Mail

 

And the Express and Star

And the Express and Star

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Dodging the Freedom of Information Act: Why the Big Society poses a big threat to journalists

For as long as the Coalition have been in government, we’ve heard talk about the ‘Big Society’. In its broadest sense, it’s supposed to be about empowering communities to do things for themselves.

Critics – public sector trade unions, for example – argue it’s a back-door way to reduce the size of the State, shifting as much as possible out of the public sector and either into the private sector or the very grey area of non-for-profit organisations and social enterprises.

For journalists – and, indeed, anyone with an interest in holding those who spend our money to account – there’s a danger that Big Society = Big threat to our right to know.

Put simply, at the moment, if a service currently provided within the public sector – and therefore subject to FOI – is moved into the private sector, or third-party organisation, there is no guarantee that FOI legislation will follow with it.

My understanding is that those at the very top of Government are reluctant to insist on the same levels of transparency should a service move out of direct public sector control because they fear it might be seen as ‘red tape’ which puts would-be providers off.

There is an argument which says that the organisation commissioning the service from the third party organisation – a council or primary care trust, for example – should still be able to provide all the information you might want, but we already know this isn’t the case.

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FOI FRIDAY: Mice at Manchester United, appealing students, cabbie grumbles and turning the lights off

Mice raid Manchester United < < < Manchester Evening News

I love this FOI. Simple, but effective – although the sports editor might not thank you

Manchester United had to deal with a mice infestation at Old Trafford, the M.E.N. can reveal. The outbreak was one of a number of hygiene and safety issues flagged up by council officials when they inspected the stadium restaurant, the Red Cafe and the staff canteen, last July. The Red Cafe was given the all-clear but the staff canteen in the West Stand was found to have a mouse infestation.

The council report was obtained by the M.E.N. under Freedom of Information laws. We asked for the results of the most recent hygiene inspections carried out at both Old Trafford and Manchester City’s ground, the Etihad Stadium

The wasted hours of ambulances at hospitals < < < Aldershot News and Mail

This data used to be released regularly – now FOI is required

MORE than 850 hours was lost through ambulance delays at Frimley Park Hospital in the first three months of the year.

Figures obtained by the News & Mail using the Freedom of Information Act show more than 863 hours were lost in turnaround times for ambulances serving the hospital’s A&E department between January and March.

The statistics only include the number of hours lost which went over the trust’s turnaround target of 30 minutes.

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The blogging parodox: The less time you spend on it, the bigger impact it will have…

I guess it was ever thus in journalism: Much as the stuff we spend most time doing feels important, it’s often the throwaway things which have the biggest impact.

That’s especially so online – just stick a story out about UFOs and watch it fly, pardon the pun.

Here’s a bit of an infographic I threw together after my hastily-written blog post about a woman’s front page ad seeking out a bloke she’d met in Huddersfield went a bit mental:

In the true spirit of less effort for more return, I didn’t put *too* much effort into making the infographic look pretty.

You can read the stories referred to here (popular post) and here (less popular post). The Scunthorpe post was the most popular post I’ve ever written, closely followed by this one:

Is this the most jaw-dropping CCTV still ever? (Again, it wasn’t exactly a labour-intensive post to write)

What would you do if you found a human skull?

You’re out for a walk and you spot something strange in a stream. You go to investigate and you realise it’s a human skull.

What do you do? I suspect I’m not alone in saying you’d ring the police and let them take it from there.

I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t pick it up, take it home, ring the local paper to have my picture taken with it and then hand it over to the police for forensic examination.

Still, just as well not everyone thinks like me, or else the Lancashire Telegraph wouldn’t have had what must be one of the most remarkable front page posed pictures I’ve seen in a long time: Great story.

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Tweet the week: Five interesting tweets for journalists to kick off the week

OK, SO HERE’S THE IDEA: FOR AS LONG AS I’VE USED TWITTER, I’VE USED THE ‘FAVORITE THIS TWEET’ BUTTON AS A BOOKMARKING TOOL, HONESTLY INTENDING TO RETURN TO THE FAVORITES LIST AT SOME POINT FOR A BROWSE. THAT RARELY HAPPENS.

SO I’VE HAD THIS IDEA: KEEP ON PRESSING THE FAVORITE BUTTON AND THEN LOOK AT IT AT THE END OF THE WEEK, TAKING FIVE OF THE SAVED TWEETS AND LISTING THEM HERE. HOPEFULLY IT’LL WORK FOR ME, AND WILL HOPEFULLY BE INTERESTING FOR YOU TOO. WE’LL SEE.

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Tweet the week: Five interesting Tweets for journalists to kick off the week

Ok, so here’s the idea: For as long as I’ve used Twitter, I’ve used the ‘favorite this tweet’ button as a bookmarking tool, honestly intending to return to the favorites list at some point for a browse. That rarely happens.

So I’ve had this idea: Keep on pressing the favorite button and then look at it at the end of the week, taking five of the saved Tweets and listing them here. Hopefully it’ll work for me, and will hopefully be interesting for you too. We’ll see.

1. Community engagement involving Instagram

2. Changing the stylebook to suit online journalism

3. The enduring power of the Press

4. Covering elections with the electorate at the centre of your thinking

5. And if you read one think piece on journalism this week, make it this one:

FOI: The council which wanted to keep the location of Jubilee street parties a secret. Really

Get out the bunting - but if you're in Oxford, please do it discreetly... the council won't tell!

Get out the bunting – but if you’re in Oxford, please do it discreetly… the council won’t tell!

Councils, for as long as I can remember, have always been keen to play up the importance of community spirit. Indeed, community cohesion was a buzzword which many authorities used repeatedly for a number of years to – depending on your point of view – meddle in areas which went beyond on their remit or help improve the areas they served.

So it must have come as a bit of a shock to Oxford Mail reporters when they asked local councils for details of street parties planned for the Queen’s latest jubilee this summer … only to be told they’d have to put an FOI request.

To quote the newspaper:

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Why printing overnight won’t kill newspapers … but trying to recreate the past could

Read all about it! But times have changed

Read all about it! But times have changed

Twice in the last week, the issue of switching ‘evening’ newspapers to overnight printing has been cited as a reason for the decline of regional newspapers.

Chris Oakley – the former newspaper editor who built up two regional press companies which were then sold on – said as much while giving a keynote speech to the Society of Editors regional conference. According to HoldtheFrontPage:

Chris highlighted the move to overnight printing on most ‘evening’ titles as one of the causes of their decline, saying it had reduced their relevance to readers.

On the subject of the content of Oakley’s speech, Former Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson asks the questions many people will have been asking, so I’ll not dwell on them here.

The second reference to overnight printing came from Steve himself, in his review of the Hereford Times, which went under the headline ‘Why large weeklies are beating big city dailies.’   Before I go on, I should point out that I worked closely with Steve when he was editor in Birmingham, and think his blog plays an important role in celebrating good things going on in the regional Press.

But his comments in his latest blog irritated me – not just because I disagree, but because I also think they emphasised a sentiment which is quite dangerous:

Nearly all ‘evening’ dailies have lost the vitality created by live news, with fast-shrinking readerships only too aware that they’ve watched, listened or read on the website most stories that can be found 24 hours later in the paper.

Whereas big weeklies, often in smaller towns or rural areas not covered very well by radio, TV or the internet, are still turned to by their readers as the only place to read all about the big story of the week.

The newspaper industry – and therefore the regional news industry – faces many challenges. Sure, it hurts for a while when you work in a newsroom which has lost on-day editions when big stories break, but switching to overnight printing shouldn’t be blamed for the problems the industry faces. Not understanding the role a daily newspaper plays in the 21st century, on the other hand, is a much bigger threat.

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