USA Today now occupies a different, digital world – but I still love it gu.com/p/3fmja/tf—
Media Guardian (@mediaguardian) May 10, 2013

2. A brilliant tribute to a mentor

Lovely tribute to former colleague Ian Willars by @colintattum – an insight into what the industry used to be like blogs.birminghammail.co.uk/birminghamcity…—
Chris Lepkowski (@chrislepkowski) May 09, 2013

3. Twitter as a news organisation?

Twitter is ready to be a true news operation | Michael Wolff
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…
via @guardian—
Leo Whitlock (@leowhitlock) May 06, 2013

4. Why there should be more to online advertising than just click-through rate:

Digital audience panel: @IrishTimes quantifies value of its “non-clickers” inma.org/blogs/research…—
Steffen Konrath (@StKonrath) May 06, 2013

5. Are we doing local government staff an injustice through stereotypes?

Excuses, excuses: In general local government employees are hardworking, dedicated bunch who make sure that wo… bit.ly/13SN8x2—
PublicSectorBloggers (@PubSecBloggers) May 13, 2013

It’s not that they’re unfunny – some of the are, most aren’t – but for every big name comedian who appears to be on a narrow roster picked up for various mainstream TV show – there are 100 equally funny folk heading up and down the nation’s motorways performing at the country’s many comedy clubs.

When not working or raising a 20-month-old, or not too tired from both (so, not as often I would like), I try to get out to comedy clubs. Until maybe two years ago, I didn’t go to comedy clubs regularly – instead opting for the big-name arena gigs. John Bishop (MEN Arena as was) and Russell Howard (ECHO Arena as is) are both brilliant on such stages. I stopped, however, when I saw Peter Kay on his Tour That Doesn’t Tour in Manchester. It works brilliantly on TV but isn’t half as funny when you’re in the audience, watching a routine polished to perfection thanks to 50 previous outings in the same building. Not to mention the fact that Kay seemed to be laughing at, rather than with, the audience too much. But that’s just a personal view.

So I’ve taken the advice of a friend and sought out comedy clubs instead. I’ve still seen some well-known names, such as Rhod Gilbert (Salford Lowry), Tom Stade (Blackburn King George’s Hall) and Josh Widdicombe (Salford Lowry Studio), and also stumbled across rising stars by chance at comedy clubs, like the brilliant Nathan Caton, and perhaps my favourite comedian of the lot, Justin Moorhouse.

Each trip is walk into the unknown – on the one occasion I booked to go to see a specific comedian on the bill, he was double booked – but rarely have I seen a comedian go a whole set without a laugh. The more out-of-the-ordinary the venue, the better the night seems to go. That’s not to say the Comedy Store in London isn’t a great night out (it is), it’s just that there’s something special about places like Off The Rails – above a pub in Saddleworth – or The Top Secret Comedy Club in Covent Garden, a basement venue which has the look and feel of a 70s social club, perhaps because the decor hasn’t been changed since then, or the Fun House Comedy night at the Angel Hotel in Bourne, an off-the-beaten-track town at the bottom of Lincolnshire.

Anyway, enough of the waffle. What I’ve done here, in no particular order, is list 10 of the best stand-ups I’ve seen over the past 12 months who you may not have heard of. They’re the ones I’d seek out to see again (although that’s not to say I laugh at all the jokes below!)

1. Jim Campbell:

2. Steve Gribbin:

3. Lee Camp

4. Tom Allen

5. Suzi Ruffell

6. Josephine Lacey

7. Danny Sutcliffe (warning: Very short clip of him from 2mins, 35sec)

8. Ray Bradshaw

9. Roger Monkhouse

10. Benjamin Crellin

Labour tried to hype up its addition of 290 seats, claiming it was down to a dis-satisfied public fed up with the state of the economy. However, another reading of that would be to point out if the public are fed up with the economy (and why wouldn’t they be), they aren’t turning to Labour in the sorts of numbers it can use to say it has convinced the public it has an alternative.

Oh, Labour reply, you’re being unfair – these elections were mainly in Tory heartlands, so we were never going to do *that* well.

The Tories, having been expected to do much worse than the 335 seats, and 10 councils they lost control of, pointed to Labour’s unspectacular performance, but also dashed to promise those who voted UKIP that it would listen to their protest vote. But how can they be sure of what people were protesting about? Two people I know voted UKIP to protest at the level of VAT in this country – I’m not entirely convinced that particular protest will register.

And then UKIP. No denying they performed very well, and depending on which interview involving Nigel Farage you listened to, you’ll get a different view on why they did so well. It’s because the Tories insulted his party. It’s because people are fed up of the political classes. It’s because the main parties have no connection with reality. It’s because of Europe. It’s became of the economy. And so on and so on.

Finally, the Lib Dems. Down 124 councillors – 24% – not great, but not the wipeout predicted. And it’s from the much-maligned party in yellow that I think the most sensible assessment of the local elections emerged.

This is the party which came seventh in the parliamentary by-election in South Shields. You can argue that particular aspect of the result many ways: What impact did the independent candidate have? Did Lib Dem voters stay away? Who went to UKIP? But Tim Farron, the Lib Dem Party president, delivered perhaps the most salient piece of political advice I’ve heard in a long time.

Speaking on Five Live as the results came in, Farron said that while there was no doubt their candidate in South Shields was a good candidate, he was a four-week candidate – ie he’d been parachuted in for the elections. The party had no infrastructure in South Shields, added Farron. In the areas where it was established and had that network to get its message out, it performed better.

The message, Farron said, was clear: Politicians can’t just turn up in time for the elections. They need to be showing people what they are doing all the time.

For politicians everywhere scratching their heads at why results didn’t go their way, surely the  assessment from Farron is worth taking to heart. I blogged a fortnight ago on how the local had been taken out of local elections – especially by Labour – as political parties sought to make it some sort of referendum on affairs in Westminster. Ed Miliband was particularly guilty of this, stubbornly refusing to address his distortion of the local elections in interviews on Five Live in the run up to polling day while at the same time insisting people should judge Labour at the ballot box based on its past errors – spot the man who wants to have his cake and eat it.

Roy Greenslade, the journalism blogger, linked to the blog post on the day The Sun broke with tradition and urged people to vote on local issues, not party lines. Greenslade said the blame also lay with national journalists for hijacking local elections. He’s probably right – but I’d argue the onus lies with the political parties to draw up manifestos which reflect what their party colour would do if in charge of a local town hall. Yes, it is possible to draw up such a national manifesto setting out local strategy. If it’s not, why bother having national political parties at a local level?

The ebb and flow of tribal popularity is surely likely to make less of a difference at a local level if local politicians don’t just turn up four weeks before election day promising the earth in return for your vote.  Tell people want you’re doing, make sure you are visible, reply to their emails and letters and make yourself the voice of the community.

Farron isn’t just stating the obvious, he’s drawing on personal history. Prior to being an MP, he was a councillor for part of Leyland, in the parliamentary constituency of South Ribble in Lancashire. South Ribble swings between Tories and Labour, it’s not a Lib Dem heartland by any stretch. Yet Farron was a popular councillor – both at county and borough level – largely, in my opinion, because he kept himself in touch with people.

I know this because his newsletters were regular arrivals at the newspapers I worked at in the late 1990s. No issue was too small to warrant his attention. And he was visible throughout the electoral cycle.

So where does the local journalist fit in here? Well, now’s the time to make contact with all those new councillors out there and keep in touch with them, asking what is happening and what is going on. Those who want to be re-elected will know to keep in touch with you.

When working as political reporter at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, I used to find it incredibly tedious being asked to get the Conservative Party candidate’s view on a particular issue even two years before the next general election. In my mind, he had no mandate, and Blackburn is likely to be forever Labour. In hindsight – and with a decade on my age – I can see it made sense. Just because a town is always going to vote red doesn’t mean the red view shouldn’t be challenged. It’s our job to make sure those views are heard.

If those views aren’t around to be heard, then the politicians have only themselves to blame when they become victims of a protest vote or the hijacking of local elections by their party elders down in Westminster.

Enjoyed flicking though todaysthedayi.com by former colleague @lydiawarren. Doing something different in New York, every day.—
David Ottewell (@davidottewell) April 23, 2013

2. Useful tools for journalists klaxon

“A curious collection of community content #curation #tools” – Matt McAlister at news:rewired bit.ly/10sYY3d #api—
Paul Bradshaw (@paulbradshaw) April 22, 2013

3. A better use for council cash currently spent on council newspapers

Terminate town hall Pravdas & introduce a local scrutiny levy to fund public interest journalism: bit.ly/15VBKU6 @public_finance_—
Kevin Meagher (@KevinPMeagher) April 26, 2013

4. Open data doesn’t seem to apply to HS2

Want the data on where HS2 will be? You won't get it from data.gov.uk gu.com/p/3fhmn/tf—
  (@GuardianData) May 02, 2013

5. Why new outlets for journalism can be harder to find than you think:

Laid-off Storyboard editor discusses pros and cons of attempting real journalism at a non-media company ow.ly/kGcyb via @CJR—
WAN-IFRA (@NewspaperWorld) May 05, 2013

On today’s show, presenter Adrian Goldberg covered the issue of ambulance response times. Now the rules around ambulance response times are common knowledge in newsrooms: You have Category A calls, the most life-threatening, which should see a paramedic with you within 8 minutes (the target is that 75% of such calls should have a response within eight minutes).

 Data on this is published regularly and often makes the news – data journalism of the most common sort. But Five Live had a different take on the story, looking at the Ambulance service which covers the East of England. According to the document at the link above, the average category A call receives treatment in about five minutes, although 5% appear to wait more than 21 minutes:

So far so good? As the Government’s open data policy goes, it’s data which tells us a story. But is it the whole story? This is where Five Live Investigates got interesting. They spoke to a whistleblower paramedic who said that the Ambulance trust was hitting its target by sending out paramedics in cars, on their own, who then had to wait for an ambulance to arrive to get them to hospital. The result, said the whistleblower, was lives being put on the line:

“At least once every shift we are waiting for more than 30 minutes,” said the paramedic, who did not want to be named.

“And we’re talking about time-critical patients, not someone who has just cut a finger.

“It’s happened to me with a patient who was having severe breathing difficulties. I had to wait for an ambulance to come from 50 miles away. Regrettably she passed away before the ambulance arrived.”

This is what I’ve called the ‘expert knowledge’ in the diagram above. Expert knowledge can come in various forms: It can be the head of an organisation defending what the data says, or it can be a press office attempting to bamboozle and say the data is wrong. Or it could be a specialist reporter who knows what the technical terms mean and knows the right questions to ask  - the sort of reporter who laughs when a hospital says it doesn’t have any cases of ‘bed blocking’ because that reporter knows they need to be asking about ‘delayed discharges. Or it could be the whistleblower, as Five Live Investigates demonstrated this morning.

Armed with that ‘expert knowledge’, Freedom of Information becomes a very useful tool. Unlike open data, it puts the control over what data is released back towards the requester. Of course, there are numerous reasons why that information may not be released – but the assumption of having a right to know enshrined in law is one we should cherish, and one we should fight for.

Five Live Investigates used data from an FOI request to back up the whistleblower’s story:

Figures released after a Freedom of Information request show that incidents where patients waited for more than 30 minutes after the first responder called for back-up increased from 1,241 in December 2011 to 2,884 last November. The biggest problems were in Essex.

Not necessarily a different story to the one told by the government data – but certainly one with more information. Note that the Government data doesn’t tell you how many Category A calls are received.

When the three parts come together, it’s a safe bet we have the Whole Story. Remove any one part, and that becomes less likely. Like Data stories which just report numbers without any expert knowledge applied. Or an FOI request which reveals information about one council but lacks any contextual overview data from other councils to compare. Or the expert knowledge which is hard to verify without either data or FOI.

I’m not saying stories which rely on any one part alone aren’t important, relevant stories, but together they make for something very important. And that’s why this story on Five Live shows why we should always strive to knit all three together – and ensure we retain access to the Freedom of Information Act in its current form.

What’s on the menu for councillors? < < < Sunday Mail

SCOTLAND’S biggest council have increased their spending on gourmet dinners – while hiking the price of meals for OAPs and the vulnerable.

Glasgow City councillors slashed the subsidies for welfare meals in a bid to save £306,000.

The Labour-controlled local authority hiked the cost of lunches at social work services day centres from 81p per day to £2.97.

Under Freedom of Information, the Sunday Mail obtained the menus for all official banquets at the council’s George Square HQ since the new Labour Council were elected in May last year.

When the Malawian High Commissioner visited in January, he and his fellow guests were treated to “Medallions of Salmon on Wilted Greens” finished off with “Raspberry and Passion Fruit Delice”.

At a civic lunch in honour of the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, last June, diners enjoyed “Chicken Roulade with Mushroom and Tarragon Mousseline”.

Spending on locum doctors < < < Carlisle News and Star

Hospital chiefs in north Cumbria plan to halve expenditure on locum doctors after spending nearly £19m on them in three years.

Following a Freedom of Information request, the trust released some key statistics about its spending on locums over the last three years.

It revealed that:

• The highest paid doctor, a consultant dermatologist, was paid a rate of £158 per hour;
• 527 locums doctors were employed at the hospitals in east and west Cumbria over the last three years;
• The trust carried out 42,300 operations between February 2011 and January 2013 and cancelled 820 operations in the last two years.
• Locum spending for the last three years was £5,880,000, £4,954,000 and £7,962,000.

Who has been caught out by the smoking ban? < < < Ipswich Star

Fewer than 100 fines have been handed out to people for flouting the smoking ban in Suffolk, new figures have revealed.

Figures, released under a the Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that seven district and borough councils across Suffolk issued only 96 fixed penalty notices to people caught breaching the ban since it was introduced on July 1, 2007.

Those fined include taxi drivers, kitchen staff, licensees, managers and owners of premises.

 English lessons for hospital staff < < < East Anglian Daily Times

News of the lessons at West Suffolk Hospital, which cost an average of £1,000 a year, comes after a recruitment drive in Portugal due to a shortage of qualified nurses in the UK

The hospital, whose staff are made up of 53 nationalities from Angola to Afghanistan, said the classes are offered to all staff irrespective of job role or origins.

According to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, 82 members of staff have been enrolled for lessons over the past three years – with 40 of them coming from Britain.

The OAPs committing crimes < < < St Albans Review

Sexual assault, criminal damage and drink driving are just some of the things that St Albans pensioners have been arrested for in the past year.

Statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 138 people over the age of 65 have been arrested in Hertfordshire, including 11 from St Albans and Harpenden.

A total of 153 arrests were made in the county in connection with 172 offences, meaning that some of the pensioners were arrested more than once.

All of the pensioners who were arrested in St Albans and Harpenden were men.

… And the 83-year-old drugs mule < < < Crawley Observer

Drink driving, importing class A drugs, and violent offences, are just some of the crimes pensioners aged over 80 have been hauled into Crawley custody for.

Only you’d be hard-pushed to know it was about the local elections. It wouldn’t look out of place in the general election but for a local election – where you and I go and vote for the person we want to represent us in the local Town Hall – it seems slightly odd.

Odd, of course, only if you still believe local elections are about local issues and deciding who runs the local council. Increasingly local elections appear to be little more than a state-funded snapshot opinion poll – a referendum on the government of the day.

There are some obvious – indeed, almost understandable – reasons for this. If you’re the Labour Party, what better way to keep momentum going than to stick another bloody nose on the coalition government at a time of budget cuts, austerity and increasing hardship.

For journalists seeking a neat way to give an overview of hundreds of different elections which don’t really have a bearing on each other, it’s a neat solution too.

But there are a number of problems with this approach – the biggest one being the disconnect it subsequently creates between voter and political system.

Pretty much throughout Labour’s last decade in power, it was dealt bloody nose after bloody nose at the local elections. For a day or two, there would be talk of change, but very little did change. A protest vote which becomes the popular vote isn’t much use if it doesn’t actually change anything.

It’s a tactic which Ed Miliband has tried to use ever since gaining office as leader of the opposition. Using Wordle, I’ve generated the following charts showing his local election launch speeches for 2011, 2012 and this year:

Ed Miliband’s 2013 local election launch speech

Ed Miliband’s 2012 local election launch speech

Ed Miliband’s 2011 local election campaign speech

Look how small the word council is in each. The 2011 speech has cuts as the biggest word. This was in the year when the coalition cuts on councils were being frontloaded. Thousands made redundant in Town Halls, services axed left, right and centre – and Miliband accepted this free gift with big references to communities, services  and local.

2012 is a different story. Government is the word dominating, and by this year it’s all about Britain, Government and people – a generic speech to hijack the local elections as a moment-in-time poll reflecting the view from the country of Westminster.

Regardless of whether or not I agree with the poster at the top, claiming that Cameron is bunging millionaires at the expense of the rest of us, I do know that how I vote in the Lancashire County Council elections on  May 2 will have little bearing on what the Government does next.

Likewise, Miliband’s decision to launch his latest pledge card – the party calls them ‘action cards’ in an attempt to distance them from the famous pledge cards which Tony Blair so brilliantly used to sum a manifesto in 100 words in 1997 – at the time of the local elections shows Labour is looking at 2015.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, David Cameron is trying to focus on local issues:

But he was also peddling a local government-focused lined when in opposition. In 2008, his launch speech was like this:

David Cameron’s 2008 local election launch speech

Whether or not Cameron focusing on councils in his speech – admittedly it was packed with references to what Gordon Brown was doing wrong too – made any difference to the national sense that it was a referendum, we’ll never know. But I’d rather a politician at least try and press the case for his party’s strength in Town Halls than just simply drop the word local from local elections.

On one hand, it of course makes sense that a national party leader would seek to make national party points during local elections – how else is he going to be of interest to the country as a whole? But that’s perhaps the problem – maybe there shouldn’t be a place for our national politicians in the local elections.

Setting the debate at a national level damages local democracy. Have you had an election leaflet through the door? I live in a ward which is Tory at county council level, Labour at a borough council level and sits in a constituency which was seen by Sky News in 2005 as so important to determining the outcome of the national elections it based Kay Burley here for the entire campaign. (And she’s much nicer in real life than everyone makes out). Yet I’ve not had a peep out of any candidate.

I have no idea what Labour would do if it retook control of County Hall in Preston, which it lost in 2009 in a defeat which the local leadership blamed on a backlash against MPs’ expenses (although I suspect it was more to do with Labour’s poor showing at the time).

Former Labour council leader Hazel Harding – ousted in 2009 from her role – summed it up well to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph at the time:

But Hazel isn’t bitter. “That’s just the way it goes,” she said. “We benefited in the 80s. We were going around winning seats that we wouldn’t expect to win because people didn’t like Margaret Thatcher. They were never going to get rid of her by voting Labour in Rossendale, but that’s how it goes. Win some, lose some.”

I have no idea whether the Conservatives are proud of their record in office at County Hall, although Lancashire has demonstrated well over the last decade why the national Tory/Labour/Lib Dem split doesn’t really bring any benefits to those associated with the parties at a local level.

Labour in Lancashire complained vocally about what they considered poor funding settlements in the early 2000s, but Tony Blair’s government never listened. Likewise, the current Tory administration is currently angry with their Tory brothers in London over the plans for more Academy schools which sit outside of their control. Current county council leader Geoff Driver describes Michael Gove as a bully. Now there’s a sign of a healthy working relationship.

I perhaps shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of door-knocking canvassers of letterbox-clattering election leaflets – if national politicians turn it into another round of their Punch-and-Judy politics, what difference can leaflets make at a local level?

And that’s the point at which communities suffer. At my old house, about five minutes from where I live now, both councillors were Tory. One was superb, and always returned calls and emails promptly. His party politics didn’t matter, but his work for the community would always get my vote. The other never returned calls, and the hard-working Tory attempted to justify this by saying his colleague focused on another part of the ward. She, needless to say, wouldn’t get my vote.

That’s how it should be. Local councillors held accountable by a local electorate based on what they’ve done for the local community. Not, as in the case of former Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Bill Taylor, ousted from office because of a national issue – in his case, being a Labour councillor in a mainly Asian ward in 2004 made the Iraq war an easy issue for the Lib Dems to win with. The fact that Coun Zamir Khan, who replaced Cllr Taylor, has gone on to represent his area for almost a decade is incidental, given his party leader, Paul Browne, boasted at the time:

“Bill Taylor has only gone because of Iraq. Simple.”

One of the unfortunate consequences for Labour councillors arriving into office on the back of a national protest vote is that they have to deliver the cuts being imposed from Whitehall.  Another is that you end up with near one-state councils ruled by just one party, a point raised by the Electoral Reform Society last week.

The party in control sees no issue in this, citing a free and democratic election, but if the opposition isn’t there and local issues don’t figure in local elections, we have a very dangerous problem: A disconnected electorate not seeing their vote making the difference they expected, receiving services from a Town Hall whose political colour is chosen not by how good the councillors are, but by what is going on in Westminster.

For local journalists and local politicians everywhere, that should be a frightening prospect we must ensure doesn’t become commonplace.

PS…. In case you’re wondering what Nick Clegg’s Wordle for his year looks like:

It appears they are big on tax. I suspect this Wordle isn’t doing them justice.

]]> http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/why-we-should-all-worry-about-national-media-and-politicians-dropping-the-local-from-local-elections/feed/ 0 davidhiggerson poster Ed Miliband's 2013 local election launch speech edmilibsnd2012 Ed Miliband's 2011 local election campaign speech labourlocalelectionpledgecard1 cameron2013 David Cameron's 2008 local election launch speech clegg2013 http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/books-by-journalists-albert-the-pug-by-garry-cook/ http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/books-by-journalists-albert-the-pug-by-garry-cook/#comments Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:46:36 +0000 davidhiggerson http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/?p=4448 Continue reading →]]> So, how do you exactly review a children’s book when you’re 33?

I think I’ve found the answer: Get a little person involved.

My daughter Isobel is just shy of two now and has loved books since a very early age (she had little choice in the matter as it happens, there are plenty of relatives itching for an excuse to buy children’s books).

But amid the old favourites – Mog, for example, and the Hungry Caterpillar, not to mention pretty much anything by Julia Donaldson – and the newer offerings from Johnny-come-latelys like Peppa Pig, Albert the Pug is a very popular one.

Albert the Pug has ended up in our house because the author, Garry Cook, is a friend of mine. He’s a journalist – but perhaps the most multi-skilled journalist I know. Writer, razor-sharp sub editor, talent documentary photographer and, it turns out, excellent author of children’s books.

Garry doesn’t just write the words, he also does the illustrations too. And maybe it’s only when you know the person who drew a book that you begin to realise how impressive drawing for children is. Perfecting a consistent style throughout a book can’t be easy.

Albert’s first adventure – done in rhyme – involves the ‘hero’ of the story waking up to find his house being broken into by a nasty dog. A chase ensures, with the police turning up and justice being done.

Isobel’s reaction has been to love the illustrations from an early age, before progressing to laughing at sound of the rhymes and pointing at the different characters to now interacting with the story. It’s a book which finds its way off the shelf with remarkably regularity – even when we’ve tried to hide it so she doesn’t get bored with it.

Everyone has a favourite book when they were little. This deserves to be a favourite for many youngsters in the future.

Albert the Pug and the Thief Dog is available via Amazon, as is the second in the series, Albert the Pug and Haunted Castle.

Around 50,000 copies are given away in the city centre every Friday. To mark the launch of the new edition, the Mail hired actors to act as newspaper sellers – who surprised shoppers, works and others by bursting into song.

I watched the video (on the Mail’s YouTube channel) and it made me smile, so I thought I’d share it on here too

My presentation was looking at the challenge facing regional newsrooms to make sure they were focusing on the right aspects of digital. Simply recreating print online is – it goes without saying – a doomed-to-failure approach, damaging both print and online.

I’ve recreated the presentation below, adding in some commentary to make some of the slides make sense.

In short, the rights are:

1. The right content

2. The right audience

3. The right competition

4. The right community

5. The right approach to mobile

6. The right to cover sport

7. The right cross promotion

8. The right people

Who was it who told you? For me, it was Stan Collymore. Really. It was his Tweet popping up on my screen which told me  Baroness Thatcher had died. Being a journalist, I dug around for another source too. But if ever there was proof was ability of social media to get  breaking news to people in a way radio, TV, news websites and certainly newspapers can only dream of,  it was an event like this.

All of which poses a bit of a dilemma for regional newspapers. With the vast majority now printed overnight, how do you respond to a huge story guaranteed to take up acres of national news print … and which judging by this snapshot of the BBC’s most viewed stories on its website just after 8pm on Monday, was already less popular than a celebrity story:

The answer is revealed in the gallery below (you can find Peter Sands’ thoughts on the designs of some of the papers here). For the traditional ‘morning’ newspapers such as The Journal, Western Mail and Western Morning News, Thatcher made the front page, with some very striking designs.

For the old ‘evening’ newspapers, it was a more mixed picture. As website editors in regional newsrooms will tell you (with maybe the exception of the Grantham Journal) with a big story like this, there might be an initial flurry of interest, but within 24 hours, local – exclusive – news is once again driving traffic.

And I think that is reflected in the mix of front pages. Some titles did splash on Thatcher – her legacy in certain parts of the country is perhaps too great. The Sheffield Star is one example, as is the Nottingham Evening Post. The North Wales Daily Post splashed on one edition with Thatcher, as did both Belfast newspapers. No surprise that she dominated the front pages of the South Wales Evening Post, Argus and Echo either.

The Birmingham Mail’s front page stands out – not just because the new design has been used so well – with an interview with Thatcher from 1978, plus a 24-page supplement inside.  The Portsmouth News, meanwhile, carried 10 pages on the news.

Some titles found other local links as a reason to splash – the Derby Telegraph pointing out on the front that she was a fan of the city’s china, while the Worcester News had a nice front page celebrating her love of the city. The Swindon Advertiser carried an interview with an MP who said Thatcher was the reason why he came into politics.

Elsewhere, however, the story was secondary to other stories which are could well have shifted more papers. Take the Bristol Post for example, led with a stalker, while the Bournemouth Echo led with a hospital ward being closed because of an outbreak of a virus.

The Hull Daily Mail led with a benefits cheat, but had my favourite Thatcher blurb – remembering her one – and only – visit to Hull back in the late 70s. The Gloucester Citizen gave its Thatcher coverage equal billing to a Subway meal deal offer – and why not? For the Manchester Evening News – one of the titles I work with which was all over the Thatcher local lines online on Monday – Thatcher was clearly the second story in town … there are many more people in Manchester talking about the Derby result, you’d imagine.

And then, of course, there are papers where she didn’t figure on the front at all, such as the Hartlepool Mail, Norwich Evening News, Nuneaton News, Blackpool Gazette and Shields Gazette.

Two titles had ‘newsy’ lines on Thatcher to splash with – the East Anglian Daily Times splashed on a deputy head who wrote an offensive Tweet about getting out the champagne, while the Bradford Telegraph and Argus led with comments from local MP George Galloway, who was always going to go off like a firework.

For the Wolverhampton Express and Star and Shropshire Star, their off-stone times are late enough for the news to have made their Monday papers, while the Carlisle News and Star ran a late edition also.

One common theme does echo through all the newspapers though – and that’s the value of our archives. There are some amazing pictures and spreads inside many of the day’s regional press. Titles I work with have made the most of those images online too.Our past can be our biggest asset in the future – and I think today’s mix of newspaper coverage shows no-one judges the mood of a local community as well as the local newspaper. 

And that’s probably why the front pages of the Liverpool ECHO and Coventry Telegraph made it on to the BBC’s 10pm news tonight. 

(Bournemouth Echo)

(Glasgow Evening Times(Hull Daily Mail)

(Nottingham Evening Post)

(Stoke Sentinel)

Readers of the East Anglian Daily Times have, but only thanks to one of the most inspired Freedom of Information requests I’ve seen in quite a while.

Details of the cat-killing cop dog (presumably the cat wasn’t the criminal, unless it was a cat burglar) emerged after the EADT put in an FOI request to Norfolk Police asking for copies of all statements prepared by the police press office to be released on an ‘if asked’ basis.

‘If asked statements’ will be familiar to many journalists. They are a clever way to be ready to manage a news story but not actually alert the media to it. Authorities which dabble in them perhaps need to ask themselves how transparent they are about their operations with the public.

There is also a certain irony to a police force using ‘if asked’ media statements for a story like this, as it smacks of ‘confess if caught’ – a position you’d presume Norfolk Police would frown upon from a suspected criminal.

In the case of the EADT article, no further details of ‘if asked’ media statements are reported – but you can read their FOI here. There are 22 pages of them, and reading through them, I’m a little surprised that Norfolk wasn’t releasing the comments as press releases anyway.

There’s also a similar FOI request from the Police Oracle publication from last summer. For some reason, Norfolk Police felt that crime prevention advice ahead of the Olympic Torch Relay should only be released if requested.

All very odd (on the part of the police, in my opinion) but a superb FOI which demonstrates the benefit of knowing how the organisation you are covering operates, and then deploying an FOI request carefully.

One of my biggest irritations in stories which are, at least in part, sourced from social media, is the tendency to just lift a Tweet or Facebook comment and pack it into a story in place of a regular quote.

The result is often a story which doesn’t read as well because, bluntly, the comments were designed to be quotes – they were conversational (Twitter) or statements (Facebook) – and generally not intended for use in news articles. Then, of course, there is the increasingly regular flow of complaints from people who didn’t expect to see their social media thoughts turning up in ‘news.’

There are two sides to this – one being that if something is said in public, you can’t be too irritated if it turns up somewhere else in public. But on the other hand, would you regularly jot down quotes you overheard in the street and then serve them up as a regular quotes in print?

Which is why I wanted to flag up a story in Huddersfield on Saturday where Hull City fans protested at a West Yorkshire Police policy of making them travel in a formal convoy – something called a ‘bubble match’ policy.

It’s caused – understandably – quite a stir, and the Huddersfield Examiner covered the story both live via Twitter and through the website and print edition.

I was particularly impressed when I saw this:

We all know ex-deputy PM John Prescott is a prolific Tweeter, often summing up brilliantly in 140 characters what he would have been mocked for if delivered in his bombastic style at the dispatch box.

He tweeted about the Hull City protest:

As statements go, it works perfectly well on Twitter. In an article, as a quote, does it work as well? To me, no. So full credit to reporter Nick Lavigueur for actually asking Prezza for a comment for the Examiner.

To me, his comment in reply is far better – for article purposes – than his previous Tweet, precisely because it’s intended to be a quote.

It’s not rocket science. It’s not a journalistic revolution. It’s just proof that some journalistic skills and approaches should transcend the different ways we now contact readers.

Why journalists must be cynics "@tipexxed Reporters are increasingly judged on their ability to fill space at speed bit.ly/YRS5aZ"—
Mike Sassi (@MikeSassi) March 31, 2013

2. Intelligent analysis of paywalls in the UK

Excellent insight and analysis from Patrick Smith @mediabriefing as usual about latest Telegraph pay wall plans m.themediabriefing.com/article/2013-0…—
Neil Wallis (@neilwallis1) March 28, 2013

3. Getting to grips with crowdsourcing can really reap rewards

They are so far beyond aimless call-outs to the crowd. ProPublica's @amzam on reader-assisted reporting: bit.ly/YEdm4V Recommended.—
Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 27, 2013

4. Who knows what about you online?

Fascinating tool that collects your own data from third party services wired.com/wiredenterpris… #cityent—
Paul Bradshaw (@paulbradshaw) March 25, 2013

5. The argument for blogs being covered by the press regulator – whatever form it takes:

Why press regulation should cover blogs | Head of Legal – headoflegal.com/2013/03/24/why… (via @DavidAllenGreen)—
Catherine O'Connor (@journochat) March 24, 2013

6. Saying sorry …. but where?

Where should newspapers put corrections? There's no easy answer gu.com/p/3ejtt/tw via @guardian—
@dbanksy (@DBanksy) March 24, 2013

7. Before you dismiss Buzzfeed, what can we learn from it?

6 lessons from BuzzFeed as it launches in the UK bit.ly/14oQScg #journalism—
Journalism.co.uk (@journalismnews) March 25, 2013

8. An obituary which should be an inspiration to journalists

Guardian obit for Peter Harvey and the amazing yarn that won him a British Press Award.
guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar…—
Stephen Brook (@SDBrook) March 31, 2013

9. Visualising Twitter conversations

How to visualise conversations around Twitter hashtags w/ Google Refine & @Gephi – post by @psychemedia ow.ly/jrDBN #ddj #dataviz—
DataDrivenJournalism (@ddjournalism) March 27, 2013

10. And finally … proof Gary Lineker really doesn’t understand, well, much? (or that revenge is a dish best served cold?!)

Rafa sacked you say? “@GaryLineker: More newspaper journalists arrested. Why ever would they need regulating? Such a trustworthy bunch.”—
Dan Silver (@DanSilverMirror) March 31, 2013

‘Looked after’ children housed in different counties < < < Bury Free Press

More than 130 looked after children in Suffolk are being placed outside the county as the demand for placements increases.

Following a Freedom of Information request, the Bury Free Press can reveal that upto the end of February 135 out of the county’s 735 looked after children were homed outside the local authority boundary.

This compares with 155 out of 780 last year, 145 out of 785 in 2010/11 and 150 out of 775 in 2009/10. Children are currently placed in counties such as Kent, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, London, Rutland, Bath, Hampshire, Bradford Metropolitan District, Southend on Sea and West Berkshire.

Child criminals in Nottingham < < < Nottingham Evening Post

POLICE have arrested children as young as eight on suspicion of burglary and robbery.

Notts officers last year made 20 arrests of primary school-age children involving a burglary and ten children aged 11 or under were arrested for robbery.

Figures given to the Post under the Freedom of Information Act show that overall 44 children aged 11 or under were arrested in 2012 – down from 100 two years earlier.

As well as robberies and burglaries, other crimes included theft, assault and criminal damage. Some arrests were even made in connection with rapes, drug possession and having an offensive weapon.

Burglaries in shops < < < Bradford Telegraph and Argus

City centre traders have voiced frustration after figures obtained by the Telegraph & Argus revealed that only 32 people have been convicted following investigations into 684 burglaries of retail and commercial premises in the last year.

Business bosses have called for more police presence to deter burglars after seeing the outcome of a Freedom of Information request regarding non-house burglaries in the Bradford south division, which covers the city centre and suburbs, from October, 2011, to September, 2012.

Police made 89 arrests in relation to the crimes recorded during that period, and 32 people were convicted, although police pointed out that some of those criminals could have been found guilty of several of the offences.

TWENTY soldiers of the Gloucestershire-based 1Rifles have been made redundant in the past year.

A Freedom of Information Act request revealed 20 members of the infantry, spanning the ranks from Riflemen to Staff Serjeants, had lost their jobs in the Armed Forces.

Consultation is underway on the next round of military redundancies, announced in January this year.

A spokesman for the army said the number of redundancies that will hit the 1 Rifles will remain unknown until June.

Homeless in B&Bs < < < Western Mail

Hundreds of homeless families and individuals in Wales – including pregnant women – are being put up in bed and breakfast accommodation and Plaid Cymru has warned the plight will worsen after bedroom tax is introduced.

An investigation by the office of Plaid leader Leanne Wood using the Freedom of Information Act has discovered the widespread use of B&Bs, with only the Cardiff and Ceredigion local authorities not using them.

In June 2011 Ms Wood raised the issue of the use of temporary accommodation directly with the then Housing Minister Huw Lewis, highlighting the unsuitability and cost of using temporary accommodation. The Minister promised to stop the use of temporary accommodation.

The second lives of police officers < < < Sunday Sun

Driving wedding cars, organising candle parties and modelling – these are the second jobs of the guardians who police our streets.

From the regular to the down right odd, officers from the rank of Chief Inspector to Constable have declared what keeps them busy when they are not on duty.

The Sunday Sun can reveal the quirky second jobs and business interests of our on-the-beat bobbies thanks to details released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Cigarette butt fines revealed < < < Sky Tyne and Wear

North East councils are making thousands of pounds from smokers who litter the streets with disused cigarette ends.

Figures gathered by Sky Tyne and Wear under the Freedom Of Information Act reveal that authorities in the region have made £196,425 since 2009 in fines for dropping a cigarette.

Newcastle City Council has imposed the most, with 1,905 penalty notices, including 1,558 in 2012.

With a £75 fine, the authority has made £142,875 in four years from cigarette fines alone.

Gateshead is the second highest with 546 (£40,950). Sunderland issued 115 (£8,625) and North Tyneside with 53 (£3,975).

Court short < < < Brighton Argus

Sussex criminals owe the public purse nearly £14 million in court fines and costs, the Argus can reveal.

The county’s magistrates’ courts and crown courts have written off a further £14.5 million in the last five and a half years.

An Argus Freedom of Information request has revealed that over the last five years the amount owed in fines, costs, victim surcharge and compensation payments has varied between £12.7 million and £15.7 million.

Nasties found in hospitals < < < GetBracknell

Cockroaches, rats, mice and ants have been found in Wexham Park Hospital.

Pest controllers were called out 52 times to the Slough hospital and 17 times to Heatherwood Hospital in 2012, a Freedom of Information request submitted last month has revealed.

Food left outside the hospital kitchen for feral cats attracted rats, reported a pest controller after being called out on May 11 last year.

The head chef killed a brown rat the day before, the report released by the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said.

Booze culture gets worse < < < Coventry Telegraph

AMBULANCE crews are dealing with a massive rise of booze-fuelled incidents caused by Britain’s drinking culture.

In the West Midlands over the last four years, paramedics have been called to 52 per cent more emergencies directly as a result of drinking.

Shock figures revealed under the Freedom of Information Act showed an increase of 8,503 cases from 2008 to 2011, involving people of all ages, on the streets of the region.

Number of times guns have been fired in an areas < < < Southport Champion

A freedom of information request reveals that there have been 43 firearms discharges in Sefton since 2010.

Over the past three years there have been 24 reported shootings in Bootle, seven in Maghull, four in both Netherton and Litherland, two in Crosby and just one in Aintree.

However, we’ve all seen bad vox pops in newspapers. The problem comes when you leave the office and start approaching random people to comment on an issue they may have little knowledge of or, worse still, little real interest in. It can become a battle of wills between reporter/photographer and passing member of the public – a little bit like being stopped by Scottish Power or a charity chugger in the street.

When that happens, the purpose of the vox pop is dead. It’s unlikely the vox pop will add much to the newspaper, and the idea that people seeing faces they recognise/ordinary faces in the paper dies a death too. It’s just as likely someone will think ‘why on earth are they commenting on that’ as they are to think ‘isn’t it great the paper’s asking Fred, who knows nothing about this, to talk about it.’

I blogged last year on the Newcastle Evening Chronicle’s new approach to vox pops last year. Instead of sending reporters to prowl the streets, a reporter goes to a particular venue to ask a question about an issue which it is likely the people in that location will care about. It helps create an event in that place because having several people from the same place answering a question will get them talking to other people about it, and that in turn hopefully leads to more papers being sold.

On a purely practical level, if you’ve got agreement to go to a venue – eg a hairdressers – you’re much more likely to get people ready to have their pictures taken, and give interesting answers than you are if you’re stood in a gale on a town centre high street. The comments on the last post suggest such experiences on wet shopping streets are common.

Here’s another brilliant example of the vox pop reinvented:

It’s from the Liverpool ECHO, which every week turns to four cabbies to ask for their opinion on the thing which has got people talking in their cabs. The paper doesn’t choose the subject, the cabbies do.

Last week, for example, one cabbie chose to talk about the cuts made in the budget, one chose to talk about the decision not to punish Wigan’s Callum McManaman for his reckless challenge on Newcastle’s Massadio Haidara, and two opted to talk about the problems in Cyprus.

Each comment takes maybe 100 words, and is infinitely more readable than a forced vox pop on an issue a paper has chosen to be the subject for discussion.

And, I’d guess, there’s far more chance of the cabbies talking to more people about being in the paper than a harrassed mum of two who is too polite to say no to a wind-swept reporter on the high street!

But perhaps the most important thing – to me, anyway – is that the subjects for discussion are chosen by the participant, not the paper. It’s a form of crowdsourcing. Many groan at that word, but there can be no denying that the greater the influence of normal readers on editorial decisions, the greater the chance of a paper remaining connected to its audience.

And that’s why I think ‘Gift of the Cab’ is a vox pop which keeps it real.

Really. So much for freedom of speech online being good for democracy!

According to the Bucks Free Press, the council’s chairman thinks making comments at meetings unattributable, will solve the problem – if you can call them that – of people having their say about local decisions being made in the village of Hazelmere.

As it happens, the first meeting to have taken place under Chatham House Rules didn’t go ahead … because not enough councillors turned up.

To quote the Free Press:

The idea is championed by chairman Cllr David Brown, who said it was brought in because members were unhappy with posts made about them and the council on Hazlemere Residents Association 2009’s website.

He said: “Councillors have approached me to say they are not happy with what’s being written on the [HRA] blogs. We are being named and accused of things that didn’t happen or our words are being twisted.

“I remembered the Chatham House Rule from my college days. There’s no difference how the meeting is reported, but instead of ‘so-and-so said…’ it would be ‘it was said…’ so there’s no comeback to try and stop the blog site.

Just one problem: It’s not legally enforceable. To me, the problem isn’t the residents’ association website’s comments, it’s the disconnect between elected councillors and the people they serve. My suggestion would be they roll up their sleeves and join in the comments on the Community Association. Most likely, people will respect that. 

Here’s another example of how online comments can skew attempts to hold officials to account. In Brighton, a Brighton Argus reporter was told by a councillor – following a meeting – that he wouldn’t comment to the Argus because he didn’t like the abuse he’d get in the comments under the article.

According to Holdthefrontpage:

Tim Ridgway, political correspondent for The Argus in Brighton, took to the social networking site after receiving the email sent by councillor Christopher Hawtree, a member of the city’s ruling Green party.

He commented:  “Amused after @chrishawtree sends me email saying he dislikes he asking him for quotes after meetings. Is that not a job of a local cllr?”

But Coun Hawtree responsed that he had a “great dislike” of the reader comments in The Argus and that he preferred to appear in other papers such as the weekly Brighton and Hove Independent or Latest Homes magazine.

This is one of those stories which should irritate most journalists. Who does this councillor think he is to consider himself above questioning about decisions he is making?

But think about it a bit more and I start to see a potential problem. As one of the HTFP commenter pointed out, there is nothing compelling a councillor to speak to the Press after a meeting, and maybe the Argus reporter is right to tell everyone the councillor likes dodging questions.

However, it’s his reason/excuse which worries me. If he is subject to unfair abuse on the Argus’s website via the comments beneath stories, then it figures he should seek to reduce the risk of such abuse. Unlike Hazeldene Parish Council, who want to tamper with democratic transparency, the councillor in Brighton isn’t asking for council meetings to be held in secret.

And this poses a real problem for local newspapers. Unlike a residents association website, newspapers carry with them a reputation of providing news and information you can trust. They’ve traditionally provided a forum for discussion – the letters page – where the rules were simple: Keep it clean, keep it polite, and tell us who you are.

Thanks to legal rulings around who is responsible for comments if a website pre-moderates them, the rules for commenting online are effectively non-existent: No obligation to keep it clean, no obligation to keep it polite, and, often, no presumption that real identities must be revealed.

The result is, even in newsrooms which spend significant sums of money on community teams like the Guardian, carefully-crafted work at the top half of the page, and unpleasant commenting underneath with the odd on-topic, meaningful comment struggling to force its way through.

Hannah Waldram, a member of the Guardian’s community team, has recently argued passionately in favour of commenting on news websites. Her efforts – via a Tumblr highlighting a good comment a day – earned her a rather snarky write-up in Private Eye. I agree with a lot of what she said: Journalists shouldn’t fear critical comments, and they can add a lot to our journalism. I would dispute the suggestion that you get back what you put in to building a strong commenting community though – it just isn’t that simple, as colleagues who have previously spent hours pre-moderating comments have been quick to tell me.

The problem is that comments often they don’t add to the journalism. Much has been made of Trinity Mirror’s decision to use Facebook login for commenting on our new websites. It wasn’t done for this reason, but the net effect has been fewer comments, but high-quality (generally) comments, with little, if any, reactive moderation required. Trawling through many of the most commented articles on the old Manchester Evening News website, I noticed the majority of the comments weren’t about the story, or even the topic of the story. They were arguments within arguments, not adding to the story, not adding to the journalism … but making the website a nastier place to be.

Hannah’s solution to such comments is: 

“you just need to be experienced in tuning out the rage/rants and one-liners and homing in on what is actually constructive or editorially valuable.”

As journalists, we should be able to do that. But should a councillor, doing his job, really be expected to put up with personal abuse and allegations? Or a GP who runs the new commissioning group on a tight budget? Or a grieving relative? Or a police inspector? Or anyone who would traditionally talk to us because they know they should be able to expect a fair deal.  As Martin Belam elsewhere points out:

“I think the interactivity of comments, and the expanding number of voices that mainstream media facilitates being heard are a good thing. But it is incredibly wearing wading through people acting like dicks to get to them.”

And that’s the risk for news websites everywhere: The comments may not only scare off readers and advertisers (and I know advertisers who have been put off by them), but they could make it easier for those who should be held to account to dodge being held to account. In short: Why give them the excuse? 

This is Peppa Pig. Peppa likes many things. Peppa likes jumping in muddy puddles. Peppa likes doing sport at school. Peppa also likes going shopping on a Sunday in Dartford.

And that’s probably the best place for me to stop trying to write a blog post in the style of the voiceover of Peppa, the much-loved star of children’s TV.

There is, however, a serious point to this point – and yes, it does what the headline says: Shows how Peppa Pig proved the value of FOI for transparancy.

Here’s how: Once upon a time (here we go again), if a government announcement around investment and grants didn’t involve millions of pounds, it rarely troubled the news agenda of even the smallest daily newspaper.

I remember as a reporter working in Accrington, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph newsdesk weren’t convinced a £7million regeneration grant to take deprivation was an obvious splash. At the time, big government and European grants were ten-a-penny (pardon the pun) and the story wasn’t helped by the volume of regeneration jargon speak about ‘pathways’ and ‘zonal gateways’ etc.

Fastforward 15 years and we’re in a different economic climate, and how the news agenda has changed. The Portas Pilot – named after Queen of Shops Mary Portas – totals £1.2million to help 12 struggling towns come up with plans to change their futures.

Never has so much been written and spoken by so many about so little. £100,000 per town doesn’t go very far, unless you’re counting the number of words written about it. And that’s even before you get to the towns which missed out.

So how exactly is it being spent? Step forward national newspaper The Independent, which used FOI recently to find out how the councils were spending this money that was supposedly going to be the catalyst of their town centres.

As a result, they found out that Dartford council had used £1,600 – or 1.6% of the budget to hire Peppa Pig – or the official costume of – to help celebrate the launch of Sunday shopping in the town.

The Independent wasn’t convinced it was a good way to spend the money, and also questioned why other councils were so slow to get spending the money they had been given. 

Dartford Council don’t accept the criticism, but the flurry of follow-up stories makes for interesting reading.

On KentOnline, council leader Jeremy Kite said:

“I think the way in which our spending was presented was particularly grotesque. We did spend that money on the Peppa Pig costume, but nobody asked me about the benefits we got from it, financially and in boosting morale in the town.

“We got Peppa Pig down and it was packed; people spent far more in local businesses than we spent on the costume.

“The fact that we haven’t wasted all the money immediately is a good thing. We wanted the time to choose the best things for the money – it’s not about the figures we spend, it’s the results we get from them.

Paul Turner-Mitchell, a Rochdale businessman who submitted the FOIs, turned to the Guardian to post his thoughts:

Only a few days ago, Mary Portas said that all the people involved in the regeneration of their high streets are doing this for nothing. I wonder how she would feel knowing that Stockton Council is paying business representatives to be on the town team? It hardly seems in the spirit of the Pilots.

While in Chorley, the Lancashire Evening Post reported anger at the fact the town missed out, and how the winners were spending their cash:

Malcolm Allen, chairman of Chorley’s Traders Alliance, which backed the town’s failed bid said: “We could have done better”, after hearing that Dartford spent £1,600 on Peppa Pig costumes and Wolverhampton Council spent £989 on postage.

“It’s disappointing news that the money is being spent on gimmicky things like Peppa Pig costumes, because it should be being spent on schemes that will have a long-term benefit to the town.

“If we’d have got the money, we wouldn’t have wasted it. Our priority would have been increasing footfall in the town centre and encouraging more individual businesses.

Here’s my point: Without FOI, this debate wouldn’t have been happening. Without FOI, the Government’s suggestion that this £1.2million was going to save 12 high streets would have gone unchallenged. Without FOI, the councils involved wouldn’t be being forced to justify how they are spending the money. Without FOI, this project would be little more than spin without any scrutiny.

We now know how much it costs to hire in Peppa Pig for a day. That, in isolation, may not sound like it justifies the case for FOI in the face of some many critics and threats but without FOI, we’d not be in a position to challenge the spending – and for a government keen for us to be ‘armchair auditors’ that must surely be a very serious point.

RT @ckanal: Zuckerberg said @Facebook's new homepage is like a "Personalized Newspaper." He's right. huff.to/14LKh7n @JournalismCCB—
Sarah Booker-Lewis (@Sarah_Booker) March 11, 2013

2. What about who you follow on Twitter says about you:

When it comes to getting news on Twitter, you are who you follow? — Tech News and Analysis – gigaom.com/2013/03/10/whe…—
Catherine O'Connor (@journochat) March 11, 2013

3. Cool new tools

Google it, by all means, but don’t stop there.This is must read – if you want the latest and best web tools. bbc.in/XXAzP5—
BBC Journalism (@BBCCollege) March 08, 2013

4. Great bit of history telling: The MI6 in newsrooms:

MI6's secret agents at Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Observer & BBC bbc.co.uk/news/uk-216287…—
Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) March 03, 2013

5. Is it time for publishing to slow down online?

.@scrollkit makes a visual case to "go slower" in web publishing. scrollkit.com/s/O7MsYbD/ h/t @AdamWestbrook. Excited to try it.—
Kevin Loker (@KevinLoker) March 07, 2013

However, while cashflow would have slowly dried up in recent years on the newspapers v the website point, the idea that Twitter is more relevant to newsrooms than Facebook is something I still hear quite often.

Regardless of speculation that Facebook is ripe to be overtaken by a new boy in town, and talk of the latest redesign likely to alienate users because of a greater emphasis on advertising and cash-generating apps, Facebook still offers the best social media chance for local newsrooms to connect with a local audience.

This post deals with some basic tips – written because I often see them ignored – for getting a good Facebook fan page off the ground. That could be for a brand or an individual.

1. Set it up properly

Facebook pages can be set up in moments – but it’s worth making sure you do it properly. Think about the main image you want to use across the top of the page, as well as the thumbnail image which will appear next to each post. For example, the Birmingham Mail’s Facebook thumbnail would have less impact if it tried to cram in the whole of the Mai’s branding, rather than the distinctive M. Likewise, the Newcastle Evening Chronicle’s main image gives a sense of all things Newcastle via a montage.

Think about how you describe the page too. Facebook gives you various categories to describe your page. Some newspapers/websites opt for ‘local business’. I prefer the option media/news/publishing – it tells you exactly what to expect.

And when you get the free-text boxes to describe what goes on the page, think beyond the obvious. Telling people what to expect on the page – eg news, sport, discussion and live updates – is much better than just describing a brand.

2. Start as you mean to go on

Think about what you intend to use the Facebook page for. Assuming it will drive traffic to your website (or sell more newspapers) just by displaying front pages and web links is only going to bring you disappointment. Traffic analysis I’ve seen shows far more traffic comes from links organically shared by users, rather than by brands. So why bother?

To me, Facebook fan pages are about showing that news brands are still relevant to readers and users of that social network. So work out what you’d see as valuable from a Facebook page and try to offer the same. That way, when something happens in your given location or area of expertise, people may well think of coming to you, or at the very least be more likely to share what you’re posting.

However, you’re more likely to appear in fans’ newsfeeds if people are engaging with your posts. Think pictures, think votes, think catchy updates which people are likely to respond to (The Denver Post has a neat trick in encouraging people to ‘like’ a post if they agree with statement or sentiment, or comment if they don’t. It also asks questions which encourage people to share advice and information, empowering users.)

Work out what time you can make available to monitoring conversation, starting debates, sharing pictures and video, posting links and try to stick to that. There’s no point collecting fans and then not keeping in contact.

3. Like other pages

Find other pages which are associated with your area or specialism and like them on behalf of your page. To do this, find a page you want to like and then click on the little wheel underneath their main image. This will give you the option to ‘like as a page.’

The challenge here is liking the right sort of pages. I don’t see any harm in ‘liking’ the local police force or the local council – on Facebook, they are sources of news and information who may well like you back. However, liking politicians or political parties could be trickier – where do you draw the line? If a local business is proactive enough to like you, does it hurt to like them back? After all, they could become a good contact.

4. Don’t automate

With technology generally comes the ability to automate things. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is bad. In the case of tools which give you the ability to fire an RSS feed into a Facebook fan page, I think it’s bad. RSS Graffiti  is a great piece of software, but linking your Facebook page to all your headlines doesn’t scream great service, it screams ‘can’t be bothered.’ It also runs the risk of spamming users, who in turn interact less with a huge volume of links, which in turn reduces your chances of appearing prominently in feeds of followers in the future.

5. Don’t connect to other social networks regularly

When writing for Twitter, you write a certain way (and not just with a maximum 140 character limit). When writing for Facebook you’ll write another way. If I see Facebook updates which include hashtags or @ references – or my favourite, the #fb hashtag which tells you someone is using a third-party tool to pick up Tweets with that hashtag to autopublish to Twitter) I think I’m not important to that Facebook page. A bit like when someone is having one conversation, but then shout parts of it a bit louder so someone nearby can hear a bit.

6. Post links … and context

I don’t like doing naming and shaming of brands on here because it doesn’t achieve much – a bit like when Press Gazette pulls a title up for a literal in a headline and then drops one itself on its daily newsletter a few weeks later. I’m sure many cases of Facebook fan pages just posting links and a headline are due to time pressures – but without fail, a link which carries a couple of paragraphs of text, written in a chatty way, plus a photograph will generate more interest, more comments, more shares than a url slapped into the description box.

7. Updates don’t have to have links

Here’s something strange: You can get weather forecasts all over the place, but people love them on Facebook too. Often, radio and TV weather updates cover a wider area than a local news brand, so a quick weather update can often gather traction quickly. But there’s no link – so what’s the point? It keeps you in the minds of your fans for a start.

Likewise, when it snows, ask people what’s going on near them. That can apply to any news story for example. Even if you haven’t got copy on your website, it’s worth sharing what you know in the hope more information comes in. Traffic and travel updates are also popular.

8. Share your front page of the newspaper

Front pages of newspapers on Facebook fan pages are a no brainer. Not only do they provide a visual reminder of the day’s publication – and maybe even a prompt to buy it – it can also, with the right paragraph of text, spark a debate around the headline. On more than one occasion, I’ve seen front pages praised and shared and, on other times, criticised by readers for reasons newsrooms would perhaps never have thought of. What you do with that feedback is entirely up to you.

9. Ask questions…

Simple to do, yet so many don’t do it daily. It takes one click for people to be engaged:

10. Use the inbox

Anyone on Facebook can message your Facebook fan page, in the same way you can message friends privately from your own account. I’ve noticed a rise in the number of great stories dropping in there, or comments and opinions which are worth following up or responding to. It’s easy to forget about, but well worth finding the time to respond to people. It’s not really that different to ringing the newsdesk, is it?

And don’t forget to tell people about that way of talking to you.

11. Consider Facebook advertising

Hmmm, spending money? Yes, but not loads. Facebook gives you a number of options for Facebook advertising to promote your page. You can do advertising to promote your page to anyone who meets your criteria, or choose to promote specific posts – a useful tool if you’re one of many on a story which is attracting a lot of interest. Like I said, it doesn’t need to be a lot of money, but can make a big difference.

And even if you don’t do Facebook advertising, don’t forget to promote your page elsewhere. Fan increases are guaranteed if you start putting Facebook widgets on your website, as well as links to the page.

12. Share other pages’ posts

Sometimes, you’ll find yourself in a position where someone will have posted information and traditional journalistic instinct is to rewrite it it and republish it. But on Facebook, why not just share the update, clicking to post it to your page? That will (probably) please the admin of the page whose post you are sharing, and also provide a quicker service for your followers. It’s a sign you’re entering the spirit of community.

13. Build niches

We’re likely to cover many subjects, and some in more depth than others. I’m a big fan of spinning off strong content subjects into their own pages, so long as they are properly managed. That way, Aston Villa fans (for example) can gather around Aston Villa content, and get a lot more of it, than you’d feel comfortable posting on a main brand page if you were trying to keep everyone happy.

14. Interact, interact interact

Get involved in the comments under your posts, and find time to do so every day. If someone criticises a post, talk to them about it. That criticise will often turn into a constructive debate, or at the very least, reduce the chance of someone thinking you just don’t care.

15. Don’t give up

Building an audience can be a slow process, especially if your page has been automated or not very interactive. But if there was one message I really wish we could make stick tomorrow, it’s this: Facebook isn’t just for fun.