Comments on: Citizen journalism: here to stay, says Northern Echo http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/09/06/citizen-journalism-here-to-stay-says-northern-echo/ Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:15:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: And now the news…from Facebook « Nuff said http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/09/06/citizen-journalism-here-to-stay-says-northern-echo/comment-page-1/#comment-105 And now the news…from Facebook « Nuff said Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:41:47 +0000 http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/?p=132#comment-105 [...] Is this a reasonable model. The Guardian seems to have something along these lines in mind; and there’s this scheme up and running at the Northern Echo. [...] [...] Is this a reasonable model. The Guardian seems to have something along these lines in mind; and there’s this scheme up and running at the Northern Echo. [...]

]]> By: Nigel Burton http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/09/06/citizen-journalism-here-to-stay-says-northern-echo/comment-page-1/#comment-34 Nigel Burton Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:05:47 +0000 http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/?p=132#comment-34 Hi Rick, You make some interesting points but I'm not sure I can see eye-to-eye with all of them. The argument for not using our community correspondents to sell ads is the same one for not using them to replace our full-time journalists: we employ professionals to do both. As I say in the Q & A our micro-sites are not about replacing our staffers with so-called citizen journalists. It's about providing coverage the paper could never hope to because of the size of our patch. The happy side-effect is to build a closer rapport between the paper and the local community. It also brings us closer to our readers (and our community corrs are first, and foremost, readers). Of course, if they were approached by a small business wanting to place an ad I would be delighted if they passed the contact on to our ad dept. Similarly, there is no demarcation line in The Northern Echo newsroom between journalists and ad reps - and there hasn't been for at least a decade. Advertising take part in editorial planning meetings every week, we regularly swap tip offs and our editor is an expert at spotting a commercial opportunity. However, I don't think we will ever see a "Jack-of-all-trades" - the potential conflict of interest between someone who writes the news and someone who sells advertising to a company that may be in the news (for the wrong reasons) is too great. Then again, maybe I'm just old-fashioned!! Nice to see such a considered reply to my Q&A tho! Best wishes, Nigel Hi Rick,
You make some interesting points but I’m not sure I can see eye-to-eye with all of them.
The argument for not using our community correspondents to sell ads is the same one for not using them to replace our full-time journalists: we employ professionals to do both.
As I say in the Q & A our micro-sites are not about replacing our staffers with so-called citizen journalists. It’s about providing coverage the paper could never hope to because of the size of our patch. The happy side-effect is to build a closer rapport between the paper and the local community.
It also brings us closer to our readers (and our community corrs are first, and foremost, readers).
Of course, if they were approached by a small business wanting to place an ad I would be delighted if they passed the contact on to our ad dept.

Similarly, there is no demarcation line in The Northern Echo newsroom between journalists and ad reps – and there hasn’t been for at least a decade.
Advertising take part in editorial planning meetings every week, we regularly swap tip offs and our editor is an expert at spotting a commercial opportunity.
However, I don’t think we will ever see a “Jack-of-all-trades” – the potential conflict of interest between someone who writes the news and someone who sells advertising to a company that may be in the news (for the wrong reasons) is too great.
Then again, maybe I’m just old-fashioned!!
Nice to see such a considered reply to my Q&A tho!

Best wishes,

Nigel

]]> By: RickWaghorn http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/09/06/citizen-journalism-here-to-stay-says-northern-echo/comment-page-1/#comment-29 RickWaghorn Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:19:35 +0000 http://rbrussell.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/?p=132#comment-29 All v interesting, but why stop with multi-media training, neat turns of phrases, etc.. surely we all need to sell for our supper these days... http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=319 Best, etc All v interesting, but why stop with multi-media training, neat turns of phrases, etc.. surely we all need to sell for our supper these days…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=319

Best, etc

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