Comments on: Hyperlocal? – interview with InsideTheM60

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:12:12 +0000

The generation of student journalists ‘lost’ is in part due to the johnny-come-lately universities which have added journalism degrees to their choice of subjects because they saw a chance for a quick buck. Journalism students do need to find different ways of getting into the industry and that makes insidethem60 an interesting experiment, if only people would focus on the experiment rather than criticising the existing media at every opportunity.

By: Mark Bentley

Mark Bentley — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:41:37 +0000

Keep up the good work Nigel and Louise – you are doing an excellent job.

When we ultimately need a vibrant, diverse and competitive media, not only in Manchester, but all over the towns and cities in the UK – to raise news values and standards, political awareness, community cohesion, positivity and involvement, ‘we’ seem to be more interested in ‘turf wars’.

Whether we like it or not, the big publishers expanded to take market-share and are now contracting having created autonomous news provision in most towns and cities. The upshot of this is that thousands of journalism jobs have been lost and even worse, a generation of journalism students – who feel passionately about the industry are and will continually be left on the scrapheap due to the contraction of the big publishers.

Individuals like Nigel and Louise should be congratulated for using initiative and trying to fill the ‘voids’, and as more and more good and aspiring journalists are ‘shut-out’ of the industry, the bigger the independent sector will become. It is now a case of embracing the change in landscape to allow the industry to re-invent itself and flourish or continue the ‘turf war’ rhetoric that will ultimately sink the ship.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:35:29 +0000

Surely the point of a discussion is just to make everyone agree with you? Interesting debate, and proof that people in glass houses…..

By: Louise Bolotin

Louise Bolotin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:38:06 +0000

Simon, as I have already stated, we are already doing many things differently to other local news providers. Like them, we also do some things the same because that is how mainstream media works by and large. I’m getting fed up repeating myself on this point. And actually, when we launched we said it was to fill gaps in current media coverage. I’ve few complaints about what other local media provide because generally they do what they do well within the restraints of today’s difficult climate for the media. And I think you’ll find that my colleague’s comments about churnalism were general ones and not aimed specifically at any local news providers.

When you say “But if you say it’s ok for you to cut and paste press releases because there’s only two of you and you’ve not much time, you are just doing the same as the rest of the media” you know very well you are twisting what I said earlier in this thread. But it’s pointless discussing this further with you as you clearly have no intention of changing your view of what we are trying to do, which is to provide a different kind of news coverage for Manchester.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:16:08 +0000

This is a blog post about your enterprise, so that’s why I’m asking questions about your website. The way I see it, you’ve got this chance to break away from what other media do, filling air time/pages with tight resources and focus on quality news. Your colleague has stated before that you launched your enterprise because you weren’t happy with the current provision in Manchester, and your colleague has been very critical about churnalism in the local media. But if you say it’s ok for you to cut and paste press releases because there’s only two of you and you’ve not much time, you are just doing the same as the rest of the media. That all said, at least you don’t use PR pictures, which are even worse.

By: Louise Bolotin

Louise Bolotin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:48:50 +0000

Do readers of any news know whether or not they are reading a press release word for word, Simon? I sincerely doubt it and it’s common practice across the entire industry as newsroom budgets shrink and there are fewer staff to cover an ever-hungrier 24-hours news agenda that demands content be pumped out quickly.

You raise an interesting question about transparency but I really do not understand why you are asking this only to us and not to other news providers who use the same practices when pushed for time and other resources. Why are you singling us out? Why not ask Paul Gallagher what MEN’s policy is, for example? Or the BBC’s? I’m honestly not trying to stir up hostility with the MEN here, but am genuinely curious as to why it seems to be ok to grill Inside the M60 but not other local news providers. That is all.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:20:37 +0000

But does the reader of the article know you’ve published a press release word for word? It’s one thing to admit it here, another to make sure the reader, the most important person here, knows too.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:57:55 +0000

Sarah Hartley, editor of Guardian Local, came up with a checklist of what constitutes “hyperlocal” journalism.

I think InsideTheM60 stands up well against this:

http://sarahhartley.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/10-characteristics-of-hyperlocal/

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:29:18 +0000

Sorry if you took that as criticism, I merely wanted to understand what insidethem60 was meant to be about. Drawing comparisons between what you do and what the BBC and others do probably isn’t helpful, or criticising the news agendas of other media organisations who presumably know what their audiences want, as you do with yours judging by your statistics. I had heard the description ‘alternative news site’ and thought that would mean you would cover only stories which other media ignored, rather than compete with them. As you said, you are limited by your resources and if it was me I would concentrate on stories no-one else had.

By: Jon Clements

Jon Clements — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:46:06 +0000

In defence of Nigel Barlow and InsidetheM60, it’s clearly a difficult challenge to create a regularly updated news site with a limited staff resource based on the type of stories that normally go unreported in local districts. Trying to function without using generally available news material is obviously unrealistic and I would imagine InsidetheM60′s readership would expect to see it anyway.

Several years ago, I was tasked with doing this very job in a highly localised area of a weekly newspaper (ie, a village) and it takes a long time to make it work, even when given the freedom and backing of the paper to do it. InsidetheM60 is trying to do it across Manchester, and that will ultimately need a bigger team of people with the local knowledge, contacts and enthusiasm to make it happen.

In the meantime, what InsidetheM60 is doing is a courageous job to fill the gap left when commercially-driven news businesses scale back their operations.