Why we need to tell readers about how we report the news

If you were to list the changes digital media has ushers into newsrooms across the UK, the list would quickly become long. The one I want to focus on today is the change in audience expectation and behaviour. Gone are the days when post-publication interaction with readers was confined to conversations with those who had

EU referendum: What does the social media reaction tell us about coming out in favour of Remain?

Several titles I work with have, over the past week, urged readers to vote ‘remain’ in Thursday’s EU referendum. Contrary to the popular myth being shared on some parts of social media by Brexiteers, each editor has been free to decide whether their titles should back either side, or remain neutral. I think the titles

How audience metrics dispel the myth that readers don’t want to get involved with serious stories

Does focusing on audience metrics damage journalism? Regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised to read that I don’t think it does – but there are important caveats. If you use multiple metrics – such as unique browsers, page views, time spent on article and bounce-rate – you quickly develop a quick, yet broad,

FOI Friday: Bouncing babies, sex offence tickings off and pensioners on drugs

Some very bouncing babies < Huddersfield Examiner Hundreds of Huddersfield’s bouncing babies are tipping the scales more than 2lbs above the national average. Figures reveal about 100 babies per year are born at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust weighing in excess of 9lb 9oz. The national averages are 7lb 8oz for a boy and

FOI Friday: Roadworks hell, hidden art, naughty nurses and bedblocking patients

Plagues of roadworks < Get Surrey Dismay has been expressed over a ‘plague’ of roadworks on a stretch between Bramley and Guildford in the past three years. Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that more than 860 individual projects were carried out on the A281 from 2012 to 2014 – an average

FOI Friday: School places, child exploitation, serial criminals and council home waits

How likely are you to get your child into a school? < Teesside Gazette Hundreds of schoolchildren in Middlesbrough are missing out on a place at their school of preference. Figures from a Freedom of Information request show that while places are in high demand, non of the town’s secondary schools were able to cater

FOI Friday: Nightmare roadwork roads, self service checkout crimes, cost of PFI and student disciplinary offences

The roads dug up more than 600 times in a year < Birmingham Mail Road repairs in Birmingham are causing traffic chaos with some routes being dug up almost every day for the past FIVE years, the Birmingham Mail can reveal. Workmen have had to carry out maintenance on Birmingham’s Broad Street three times a

FOI Friday: Absestos claims against councils, zero hour contracts, councils with millions in the bank and police encounters with men in fancy dress

Absestos claims made against councils < Manchester Evening News own hall bosses throughout Greater Manchester are facing a ‘ticking timebomb’ of mounting claims from people struck down with conditions linked to deadly asbestos. Manchester council paid out almost £600,000 in damages to victims in the last year alone, an M.E.N. investigation has found. The 2013/14

FOI Friday: Alcoholics refused transplants, council staff chasing lonely hearts, neglected pets and patients in the wrong hospital beds

Alcoholics refused liver transplants < Birmingham Mail Eight Birmingham patients denied liver transplants because they could not convince doctors they would stop boozing after the life-saving surgery later died, shock figures have revealed. In the last five years, 12 patients with alcohol-induced liver disease at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust were turned down for

Digital journalism is devastatingly simple – but still a huge leap to be celebrated when we get it right, Mr Greenslade

On Friday, I blogged about the remarkable success the Manchester Evening News was having in raising money for the Manchester Dogs Home, part of which had been torched in what is apparently an arson attempt. In 24 hours, the MEN raised over £1million for the Home. It was, I said on Friday, a stroke of digital