Trinity Mirror mulls rollout of regional football blogs network

Regional newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror is considering establishing a series of standalone club specific football blogs.

The publisher quietly launched two blogs - about Everton and Liverpool football clubs - last month.

Neil Benson, director of editorial development for the group’s regional newspapers, told the World Editors Forum earlier this week that the publisher was looking at launching further football club blogs alongside other of its city newspapers.

He later told Journalism.co.uk that no launch plans were imminent yet the success of the ‘fledgling’ blogs had made development of others a likely possibility.

"We've got titles in Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Cardiff, with the club there on the upswing, it’s very much in our thoughts looking at the success that our Liverpool titles have had, we think it’s something that would certainly work in those places," he said.

Trinity Mirror recently appointed a new multimedia regional director. Benson said that his role would be to encourage best practise such as launching new football blogs, across the group.

Trinity’s Liverpool Post and Echo titles are using Moveable Type blogging platform to run the new blogs.

In addition it’s using live blogging software CoverItLive to engage a community in real-time.

The Post first used CoverItLiver last month to blog the daily editorial process on the newspaper and take feedback and input from the readership.

"The way I look at it is that we have to look at it more like radio producers, thinking I’ve got an hours phone-in to fill, what’s the interesting question to ask to prompt a response," added Benson.

"Most of the time these things get a life of their own and people will write what they want anyway but at times you have to stir the pot and direct the conversation.

"It’s not a companion site, it’s us offering a platform for Liverpool and Everton fans to post their own content. It’s a kind of semi-detached approach."

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