cowbite.org

Blogging 42 day detention debate

Channel 4 News are live blogging today's debate in the Commons using coveritlive.com.

I'm really enjoying the mix of reporting, asides and video clips.

"Channel4News - GOSSIP: The smart money sees the government winning this one with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party. But apparently the Tories are expecting to lose this too. We've been told that David Cameron is at a private function from 6:30 onwards. That means that if the government loses the first vote, he would miss the second vote, which we're expecting at 6:40.
Clearly the Tories' aren't preparing for victory..."

It's good oop north: hyperlocal user-generated news

Trinity Mirror are pulling in enough user generated content to publish six ad-supported local freesheets a week. This is so cool. They've rolled out a network of blogs tied to local postcodes. The local paper (Teesside Gazette) still produces content, but a significant amount of stuff comes from the blogs. On its own the paper wouldn't be able to generate that much hyperlocal news, but people with a vested interest in their own area can. As Wired's Assignment Zero project found, contributors volunteering to contribute about something they're passionate about will often tackle them in greater depth and detail than professional journalists. The added plus is that any specific blog could become a focus of local community/activity and be used for more than just generating news.

My family live up in this neck of the woods (there be dragons), so I'll pick up a copy next time I'm up there. One thing I especially like about this is that it's an innovation that hasn't been driven by a major urban centre. Go small/medium towns up north!

(via Seamus McCauley, who also has an interesting post on the core business of newspapers.)