A Christmas tale of why community matters

Merlin at home

When our 10-year-old cat Merlin went missing two weeks after we moved house, we realised we needed to act fast to find him.

So the family went into action on two fronts – knocking on doors around our new home and spreading the message online. My daughter put up posters on lampposts on nearby streets and we went out searching, asking neighbours if they had seen him. Meanwhile I tweeted a picture of Merlin and an appeal for information with an #Exmouth hashtag.

The response was quick locally and via twitter. Neighbours promised to keep a lookout for our missing pet and online several followers - some who I knew personally and some I didn’t – retweeted my appeal, getting the message out to potentially thousands of people.

Thankfully three days later we got a phone call from the people who had moved into our old home to tell us Merlin had somehow found his way back there two miles across town. We found him bedraggled, limping and hungry – but pleased to see us after his adventure. He is now home recovering, and we will be keeping a close eye on him.

This story has a happy ending – and it illustrates for me how community works online as well as offline. It was good to get to know our new neighbours, who were all sympathetic and promised to help. That was comforting at an anxious time. And similarly the help online via twitter gave us reassurance that friends and strangers cared. Online and offline, people were going out of their way to help when we were in need.

My point is that online communities can offer action and support in a similar way to offline relationships. The results can be quick and effective in spreading a message and calling people to action. I saw a similar outpouring of concern, alongside practical help, with a Facebook campaign supporting people who lost their homes in a serious fire in Exmouth a couple of weeks ago.

Online communities can quickly extend the reach of help and support, providing reassurance and practical action. And that’s a timely message about our power to do good that shouldn’t be ignored, especially at Christmas.

Journalists facing a new regulatory regime

There is still a long way to go – police investigations, court cases and government inquiries – before the dust settles on the phone hacking affair and we can finally take stock of the new environment that will emerge for journalism. The fact is that a robust ethical framework for the day to day practice of the profession already exists and is followed faithfully by the vast majority of journalists in the UK. It is the Editors’ Code of Practice published by the Press Complaints Commission.

Win a chance to break into TV news

Media Trust and ITV News have launch Breaking Into News 2011; a competition to discover new talent and find top broadcast journalists of the future. The competition offers 18-25 year olds the chance to be mentored by experienced broadcast journalists from the ITV News network newsroom in writing, presenting and production skills. Six finalists will be given the opportunity to develop their ideas and turn them into a news report.

Ways to get paid for writing online

There are a variety of websites that will pay you to write online. For anyone wanting to get into journalism, they’re a place to start. In my experience, there is no magic formula to make a fortune. Set fees are low and revenue sharing models deliver sparse returns. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make money – but it will take a lot of graft and promotion to get anywhere. The lists of top earners published by sites like Demand are a tiny minority.

Better to see these sites as an opportunity to learn the trade. Feedback from editors can be helpful, and the detailed guides on house style are a good introduction to the discipline of writing for a specific publication. There are also useful guides about copyright and picture use. Choose a challenging assignment to get to grips with research techniques. Or write on a subject you have specialist knowledge about. Either way, you are compiling your online portfolio.

Like it or not, these sites, known as “content farms” are forming part of the online media landscape. Some say they are devaluing the status of professional journalism and as they are demand-led, with subjects chosen by trawling popular keywords used in online searches, drive down the value of content and lead to stories only being written to satisfy the mass market. The argument goes that this approach limits diversity and choice and is unlikely to encourage investigative work which serves the public interest.

Has Storify got the X Factor?

I’ve had another play with Storify, the curation tool that allows a user to create a timeline-style story of online content from all over the web including social media. This time I looked at the latest twist today in the saga of Cheryl Cole and her possible return to the US X Factor. Storify proved a flexible way to search related tweets and news stories, and allowed me to merge them easily into a narrative. This is a great way to tell a story like this which quickly creates a wealth of content and responses online. It also makes it easy to find and include root sources and add a commentary. Here’s the link to the Storify page.

Super-injunction fiasco puts judges and MPs on collision course

So the cat’s half-way out of the bag – MP John Hemming today used Parliamentary privilege to name Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs as the man identified on Twitter as being at the centre of the super-injunction saga. He had been named by 75,000 Twitter users as the subject of a super-injunction gagging the press from repeating an allegation that he had an affair with former Miss Wales and Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. Meanwhile, two attempts to overturn the injunction at the High Court in London failed today – even though the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper effectively identified Giggs on Sunday, claiming the injunction had no effect under Scottish law. The Prime Minister has ordered a Parliamentary inquiry into privacy orders, telling ITV’s Daybreak it was unfair and unsustainable to ban newspapers from giving information widely available on the internet.

Digital media helping to change people’s lives

Can digital media change people’s lives for the better? Media Trust thinks so, and is asking for people to come up with inspiring technology projects. The second Community Voices scheme is a one year UK-wide project “which aims to inspire, engage and empower communities who feel disadvantaged, isolated, or voiceless, with the confidence, skills, and access to resources and funding that will enable them to make a meaningful difference to their lives using digital media.”

Another way for journalists to tell stories online

There’s a new online tool to tell stories, mixing content from across social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. It’s an interesting way to curate and combine sources. I had a quick go and created a Storify about the Devon County Show, selecting tweets, Facebook updates, news stories, photos and videos. You can see it by clicking this link (javascript won’t embed in this WordPress-hosted blog).

http://storify.com/ed_oldfield/devon-county-show

Through choppy waters on the good ship Customer Service

I thought I’d share an email exchange between my wife Zara and a Cornish travel agency when she made an inquiry about a trip on Brittany Ferries’ Pont Aven flagship. Start at the bottom and read up. Any analysis from customer relations specialists, or indeed marine architects, would be welcome. 

Tarnished image of the regional ‘churnalist’

If you’re a journalist working in the regional media, what do you think people think of you? A trusted guardian of local democracy, educating, informing and entertaining, exposing wrongdoing and holding the powerful to account? Well think again. When I had a look at a government advice document to schools on how to deal with the media, it was interesting to see the perception of working life in the 2011 local media newsroom.