David Higgerson, Trinity Mirror regionals' head of multi-media, offered hyperlocal websites an olive branch today, suggesting they and the local press can work together.
Higgerson, speaking at the Value of Journalism conference at the LSE in London, admitted that in the past some local press journalists had been antagonistic to hyperlocal sites because they didn't like competition and they thought the hyper-local sites in some way devalued journalism.
But he said that Trinity's Birmingham Mail and its daily in Middlesbrough had built good relations with hyperlocal sites.
Higgerson suggested with regional newspapers centralising a "greater collaboration" between them and hyperlocal sites could be mutually beneficial.
He said local papers could use their greater resources to investigate tip-offs from hyperlocals; strike content sharing agreements with them; and syndicate stories that are currently being lifted without payment from hyperlocals by the mainstream media.
"At the most basic level we can start supporting each other by linking to each other on our websites," he said.
- David Higgerson has a post on his blog suggesting 10 ideas for hyperlocal sites.
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3 comments:
So actually what he means is that Trinity Mirror would like to do the same as The Guardian with their local beatbloggers.
We all link to each other's sites and retweet each other's tweets here in Edinburgh - all to good effect. The important thing is that the local story is being told to locals.....
I run the Edinburgh Reporter hyperlocal news website and have been asked (for the second time) to guest blog for The Guardian.....which is great promotion for my own site too. An innovative set-up, the local blogs run by The Guardian in Leeds Cardiff and Edinburgh are obviously a model to be copied!
Wow - so the model is that unpaid citizens do the groundwork and paid journos do the investigations.
Had newspapers been investigation rich when there were more journos that might strike a chord, but it sounds like wishful thinking.
Also Dave might be over stating the strength of the bonds between hyperlocal blogs in brum and the Mail.
At least though he appears to acknowledge that, after a years of many journos disparaging what local volunteer bloggers do, it is a bit rich for them to now come asking for help!
Just to reply to Nick's comment, I didn't propose a model for the future, I was exploring way the two parts could work together, and one of the main points I made was no two relationships will be the same. What I'm keen to do is a find a way to work which benefits both parties.
On Phyllis's point, The Guardian's approach is one of many ways of working together, but I also suggested that linking and tweeting should be the start of the relationship.
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