JoshHallidayDotNet

First and foremost, huge credit to Talk About Local and the Guardian for putting on such a great day in a perfect venue. I’m already looking forward to #TAL11. Here’s a write-up of my notes:

In a theme that would run throughout the day’s sessions, it’s now clearer than ever that a blanket set of terms of engagement for local news providers will never work. The motivations and experiences behind all publishers are kaleidoscopic and should be appreciated on an individual basis.

For some, a charity donation would do; for others, that’s not going to pay the bills.

'The Boardroom' packed for David Higgerson and Philip John's session on local media partnerships

Perhaps for those who aren’t aiming for hyperlocal to pay the bills, a prevalent question might be, ‘What would our regular users want us to do?‘

It might also be useful for hyperlocal sites to publish online their terms of engagement. An FAQ on what might happen if a user submits an image requested by the local, a national, the telly – do we have a going rate? Who takes the biggest cut?

I think laying cards on the table might be a conducive first move. There’s never any harm in F2F meeting-up with potential partners either.

Ray Duffel leads another popular session on hyperlocal newsgathering

In terms of garnering and encouraging a base of community reporters, there’s a lot to learn from People’s Voice Media in Brighton and in Manchester. Helping people jump hurdles to tell stories, write headlines, publish online and stay within the law.

How about a monthly skills session/bootcamp? Stake out a public space on a Saturday morning, teaching podcasting, audio slideshows and other storytelling methods, social media sessions, etc. The specifics of these sessions could change to suit the publisher’s financial imperatives too, of course.

Another one that hit me smack in the face during Mark Walker’s talk on community reporters:  I’ve got A5 pages full of story ideas for SR2 Blog and precious little time to do them justice. Were I to put them out there for interested parties to self-assign – in a Google doc or a Facebook note – that might be one way of fostering a more productive (and transparent) relationship.

The standard refrain of potential SR2 Blog contributors is ‘I’d just sound like a Mary Whitehouse moaner!‘ or ‘I don’t really know what sort of stuff you’re after. That’s not news – is it?!‘ Making explicit my perception of news would clear this up, as well as being undoubtedly helpful for myself.

A failing on my part is my all too often reinventing the (distant, insular) voice and tone of local news reporting. I should be taking it down a peg or two, playing to the inherent strengths of a hyperlocal site:

‘I believe that the more journalists behave like citizens, the stronger their journalism will be,’ so Jeff Jarvis noted in his definition of ‘networked journalism.‘ ‘In networked journalism, the public can get involved in a story before it is reported, contributing facts, questions, and suggestions.’

See all #TAL10-tagged posts here. Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed.