Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists

Why I’ve decided to freelance.

Like many aspiring journalists, I have been on the internship rounds for a while now, hoping that it will lead to a job. I’ve completed prestigious placements with The Independent and the Times, and kept on trying to land my first staff job.

So how do you get a staff job? Opinions vary. One editor advised me to get a longer placement if possible so that people get to know me by name or reputation, although she was reluctant to suggest that I move to London to do so.

It is possible to get a job through the internship route. One woman I spoke to at The Independent told me that she was offered a job after five weeks of work experience and some freelancing, although she admitted that she was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. However, I did hear that some recently-hired staff had been working there (presumably unpaid) for a year.

As I live more than 200 miles from London, I would never be able to afford an extended placement. I am grateful to the friends who allowed me to sleep on their sofas and floors for a few weeks, but it would put a strain on those friendships if I asked to stay there for months.

A Times journalist suggested that I try freelancing to raise my profile, as that was how he eventually got his job. He advised me to write as much as possible.

Although I will continue to seek work experience placements, it has become clear to me that you cannot guarantee a job as a result, so I have decided to turn to freelancing as an alternative route into journalism.

Why freelance?

Freelancing has many advantages: you can create your own work, you can build up a portfolio of published work, you can work anywhere, and you are your own boss.

There are significantly fewer jobs in journalism today due to the recession, and competition is fierce. One role I applied for had 450 applicants, and I was lucky enough to make it into the top 50.

There are, of course, downsides. You are likely to work alone, you have to do your own tax returns, you don’t have a reliable income and the majority of your work will be generated by your own pitches.

However, as far as I can see, it is the only option available to me.

Is it scary? Absolutely. Do I know what I’m doing? Not really, but, strangely, I’m looking forward to it.

TNTJ March 2011: Time to give up the graduate schemes for startups?

It’s the first Monday of the month, which calls for a new debate topic on TNTJ. Thanks to all those who contributed posts on hyperlocal journalism last month, you can see those under the February 2011 tag.

In the coming month we’ll be asking you to think about where, and how, you’d like work as a journalist. The term ‘entrepreneurial’ crops up in many a conversation about the future of news nowadays. One self-styled entrepreneurial journalist, Adam Westbrook, argues the case for enterprise as a serious and proper concern for young journalists:

The call to enterprise isn’t a stop-gap, nor an acceptance of defeat trying to get a ‘proper’ job.

Magazine student Marc Thomas agrees. He has nailed his colours to the mast today with a blog post titled: “Why I’ll be turning down jobs this June”.

This might be the only opportunity I will ever have to be so free in journalism and business – If I don’t take it now, I’ll probably end up bitter, sitting in a string vest on a park bench with expired milk dribbling down my beard as I rue the day I took the easy way out.

I’m sticking with entrepreneurial journalism. It’s a lot safer.

What do you think? Has the time come to think of striking out on your own or working with a small collective or startup?

Or do you feel the pull of a coveted place on a big media graduate scheme above all else?

If you’re are already registered with TNTJ you can simply log in here, or follow this link to register.

As ever, feel free to copy posts from your own blogs, or post what you write for TNTJ anywhere else. TNTJ is run on a simple WordPress blog.

TNTJ is an opportunity for journalists under 30 – students, staffers or freelancers – to post or cross-post their thoughts on a different area each month and contribute to a conversation about the future of our industry. A conversation among the people who will be an integral part of that future.

Related reading:

See this insightful post on the issue today from journalism student and TNTJ contributor Joseph Stashko.

Journal Local: Birmingham journalism students launch hyperlocal news agency

Three Birmingham City journalism students have created a hyperlocal news agency for their final year dissertation project.

Newswaves aims to provide content for hyperlocal blogs around the West Midlands and drive traffic in their direction by publishing links and excerpts.

Most people start Hyperlocal blogs purely because of their love of the area and run them as a hobby, meaning that they don’t always have the time or the means to cover all the stories they’d like to; that’s where the Newswaves team come in.

Full post on Journal Local at this link.

Q&A: Hednesford News founder Kellie Maddox

Final year Birmingham City University undergraduate Kellie Maddox has set up her own hyperlocal news site for the small Staffordshire town Hednesford, in an attempt to build on the local news currently available and offer more stories focused on the community.

Hednesford News launches today, so there isn’t much on it just yet, but TNTJ spoke to Maddox about why she set up a hyperlocal site and where she intends to take it.

Who’s behind Hednesford News?

It’s just me at the moment – my name is Kellie Maddox (@kellie_maddox) and I’m a final year undergraduate at Birmingham City University studying the Media and Communication (Journalism) course. I’m hoping to get more ‘community reporters’ on board eventually, but since it’s very early days yet, it’s just me right now!

How and why did it start?

Well, it started pretty instantly really. Through my studies and connections I’ve been following the whole hyperlocal ‘movement’ for the last 2 years and have followed a number of start-ups and seen them blossom recently. I’d planned for a while to start a site for my local town and the perfect opportunity came this year as part of my final year project. Philip John at Journal Local kindly agreed to host my blog from their platform so basically, he set that up and here I am now, ready to report!

What big issues, and ‘smaller’ issues are going on in the area that you hope to cover?

I think there are a couple of ‘big issues’ affecting the town – firstly there is a new distributor road being built through Pye Green fields as part of housing development on the land and that caused quite a stir, so I’m hoping to track the progress on that and also the Chase Gateway is a redevelopment project for the town centre which will mean big changes for a town which is currently a little run-down. ‘Smaller issues’ I guess I haven’t yet got plans for but I hope that by getting more of the community on board, this is something which will develop. Although a trainee journalist myself, I’d really love for the project tobe community driven because I think that it what makes hyperlocal news so valuable – the voice of the local.

Will this be a business venture in the long term or not-for-profit

Currently, the site is not-for-profit for its duration as my final year project but in the future, I do hope to make the site more financially sustainable. There are lots of people, much more knowledgeable than me, trying to come up with business models for these kinds of sites and it’d be great, if between us, we could come up with something. For me, I don’t think I’d ever see the site as a money-maker, what’s more important is the quality and range of content I hope to deliver, that is currently not offered by the limited media in our area.Community engagement is one of my main aims because I feel that many people, who have favoured local newspapers for years, are now not being provided with really relevant content specific to their location. I hope this offers me a chance to do just that.

How do you see it developing following launch, editorial plan for amount of content once established.

At the moment, the site has quite a bit of my attention for the next three or four months so I really hope to make a good start and really get out there and report on local issues. I would say that I’m aiming for a consistent approach to content – three to four ‘pieces’ per week as a minimum and then using micro-blogging (Twitter etc) to post quick snapshots whilst I’m out and about. I see the project as being quite organic to begin with and I’m kind of just experimenting at the moment – I want to trial different reporting styles initially to guage what users ‘like/respond to’ best (e.g. written articles, images, unedited video, edited video, Audioboo etc). Hopefully, if I can get some other contributors on board then the amount of content on the site will grow.

How would you define the current coverage of local news in the area?

This was one of my reasons for starting the site. We currently have two free sheets covering Cannock – the Chase Post and the Cannock and Rugeley Chronicle and then there’s the Cannock edition of the Express and Star. Obviously these publications are limited in the amount of time and resources they can offer to covering ‘our patch’ and so there is very little focus on the issues specific to Hednesford (unless of course it’s something which is quite ‘big’ in their eyes). This is nothing unique to our area of course, but does leave a gap in the market for a site like ours to hopefully provide that ‘very local’ infomation that is still important to local people.

Ray Tindle: ‘If you had a paper for every street, it would sell’

“The average person isn’t interested in the wider area, but they are very interested in their immediate locality,” says local newspaper proprietor Sir Ray Tindle in an interview with Journalism.co.uk today.

“If you had a paper for every street, it would sell. You couldn’t do that, but you could do it for every town.”

Tindle describes using hyperlocal news as a revenue source to support one of Tindle Newspapers’ regionals. The 100,000 circulation weekly regional was facing losses of around £200,000 over ten months, but instead of making people redundant or closing the title Tindle added three hyperlocal titles alongside the paper in order to sell more affordable advertising to small local business.

“We were able to target potential customers the small advertisers wanted in those areas at a price they could afford.”

Read the full interview at this link.

The TNTJ blog is an opportunity for journalists under 30 – students, staffers or freelancers – to post or cross-post their thoughts on a different area each month and contribute to a conversation about the future of our industry. A conversation among the people who will be an integral part of that future.

Feel free to copy posts from your own blogs, or post what you write for TNTJ anywhere else. TNTJ is run on a simple WordPress blog.

If you’re are already registered with TNTJ you can simply log in here, or follow this link to register.

When hyperlocal goes offline

I’ve started a new local newspaper.

Now, don’t look so querulous. Or, chances are that you are as Adam Westbrook describes one of these ‘Next Generation Journalist(s)’. Someone ‘who isn’t threatened by the decline in value of news, or the lack of jobs, or the slashing of budgets brought about by the digital revolution’. So there, it’s not so daft an idea as some might think.

In fact it is the ‘digital revolution’ that has inspired me.

Newsday: The Vocal Local is a pop-up newspaper based upon the principles of a hyperlocal website; collaborative, interactive, socially entrepreneurial and bang up-to-date.

The project works by gathering a group of local journalists to write design and produce a local newspaper in one day in one newsroom.

As discussed elsewhere at length, the word ‘hyperlocal’ is problematic. But semantics aside, Newsday gives itself a more common social goal. That goal is something like the best representation of a demographic that we have chosen to write about, (in our case young adults and families) using adaptable methods that connect and respond and link a population effectively enough to create a continuous, two-way dialogue between news outlet and reader. If that sounds like something a newspaper should already be doing, in my area it’s not.

Whilst my local paper might advertise a link to its twitter page or website, is has yet to reflect the ‘digital revolution’ in its newspaper design and in the way that it gathers news. In other words, there is not enough cohesion between paper and web and not enough relevance for a generation of people who love newspapers but rely on their laptops.

So why bother? Well like many places the area in which Newsday will be circulated is suffering a huge unemployment problem and now more than ever people have time to read a newspaper- but they want a newspaper that looks and feels as enticing and competitive as a website. Newsday aims to give all the neat stylings of a hyperlocal website poured into a paper that can be held in your hands.

These ‘adaptable methods’ for a ‘modern connection’ are used by Newsday in a very basic way:

Web aesthetic
As a ‘one day to get out one paper’ operation we can risk revamping the way that local news is seen on the news stand and start from scratch. Newsday coheres with the blog aesthetic of a website- as a result it looks ‘clickable’- easy to read, accessible and inviting. It’s front page is text light and picture driven, has plenty of columns and info boxes, links and new fonts and in terms of content- quirky little features, vox pops and subtle changes in language i.e. columnists are rebranded as ‘bloggers’. It has a punchy informative style, is not afraid to produce comment with personality and humour and aims to organise news with neat talking points that provoke debate.

The ‘look ere its Sally!’ effect
You know that exclamation when you see someone you know, or know of in the paper and feel an immediate intrigue. hyperlocals are good at giving people that sense of ownership and familiarity, because they house stories and blogs from people that can’t be found via a press release or contact book. A hyperlocal website is perceived as a medium that its readers can be a part of and Newsday replicates this connection with face-to-face newsgathering or Newsdrives. This is literally a walking advertisement for stories, whether that’s approaching people on the street to ask them what they know and what they think or setting up a news stand outside Asda (like one newspaper did) to get to know and talk to individuals who are often sitting on stories that they didn’t know were newsworthy. Think hyper, hyperlocal.

A face to the name
Blogging is great but if you are just starting out as a journalist, waiting for work experience, newspaper pitches and job interviews to come right, how are you supposed to keep your practical skills sharp? A simulated production day is a valuable way for local groups of journalists with varying degrees of experience to share skills, learn new ones and challenge and influence newspaper convention with their online experience. hyperlocal websites have made multi-media and networking supremos out of previously unheard of writers and designers. That success can be bolstered by practical extension; a tweet up or meet up that has a goal to produce something material.

Why hyperlocal sites and councils should get along

Dan Slee is a senior press officer with Walsall Council and has almost 20 years’ experience working for and with the media in the West Midlands. He started his career cleaning pages of lead type on the last hot metal newspaper in the West Midlands. He blogs here.

This piece is cross-posted from Wannabe Hacks’ Hyperlocal Week.

It’s tempting to think of hyperlocal sites and councils as Steptoe and Son. Two people pushed together in the same room. Not always getting on. Not always wanting to speak to each other.

The thrusting son with bright modern ideas and the stuck-in-his-ways dad frayed at the seams with string holding his trousers up.

The fact is, both parties need each other.

Will we always get on? Not on your nellie. But there are ways to make it easier and reasons that we should.

Hyperlocal blogs are part of the news landscape. There’s more than a hundred scattered across the council and each has its own character and can vary. All do a similar job. They try and inform people of what is going on on in an area.

Years ago, the district reporter may have lived on the patch and got to know the main players. That’s what a good hyperlocal site does. Local government is slowly waking up to this and is talking to hyperlocal sites. Why? Because the public sector needs to go to where the audience is. That’s why.

In Walsall, where I work, back in 2005 there were six newspapers with three based in the town and 21 journalists or photographers. By 2011 there was no newspapers based in the town, the 100-year-old Walsall Observer had closed and just nine people were working in news.

What’s the benefit to local government of talking to bloggers?

Talking to bloggers from the off means that they are kept as informed as a print journalist. That can banish Chinese whispers and misinformation. That’s helpful to both sides. If it means that a blogger can pick up the phone or fire off an email to make a media enquiry before writing a possibly inaccurate story that has to be good all round.

But this isn’t a one way street. There’s a whole heap of things the hyperlocal site can get out of the relationship. The ability to use the relationship to fact check means a building a more trusted product.

It’s also a way of getting a useful stream of interesting content. Most council press releases, rather than being exercises in Dark Spin, talk about events at libraries, museums and galleries. They are there to inform. There was a fascinating session at the Hyperlocal Govcamp West Midlands event in Walsall last year when bloggers and press officers came face-to-face.

What started off as a major row between two sides ended up with people appreciating more what the other was trying to do. That’s what we all need to do.

Four things a hyperlocal blogger can do:

1. Ask to be put on the press release distribution list. Telephone the council press office to introduce yourself. Go on. Don’t be shy.

2. Be fair. As in good journalism being fair and accurate goes a long way to building a reputation.

3. Realise the press officer has a job to do. From time to time you may get it wrong. We all do. If a press officer contacts you don’t fall out. Ups and downs are part of any relationship.

4. Realise that the council is a stream of content that your readers will be interested in from events to the more challenging stuff.

The TNTJ blog is an opportunity for journalists under 30 – students, staffers or freelancers – to post or cross-post their thoughts on a different area each month and contribute to a conversation about the future of our industry. A conversation among the people who will be an integral part of that future.

Feel free to copy posts from your own blogs, or post what you write for TNTJ anywhere else. TNTJ is run on a simple WordPress blog.

If you’re are already registered with TNTJ you can simply log in here, or follow this link to register.

Why protests must be covered, and the tools you need to do so

Protests can present a whole range of issues, not least to a hyperlocal news site.

But one thing’s for sure, they should be covered, and if done so properly, will hugely benefit your website.

Protests provoke opinion, debate and curiosity – which results in hits.

Image via Wikipedia

When my Blog Preston colleagues and I caught wind of news that the English Defence League, and Unite Against Fascism were coming to the city, we knew we had to cover it.

After some discussion, we decided to set up a live-blog using Cover It Live, a piece of software we had used before in our election coverage.

As everyone was keen to get into the thick of things and actually report from the protest, we started the blog in the morning, and set it up to pull in tweets with a specific hashtag (#edluaf) and from specific users, so that no-one could ‘hi-jack’ the feed.

By setting Cover It Live off in the morning and into ‘auto-pilot’ it allowed us to actually get out and ‘do some journalism’.

The coverage was a roaring success; pulling in our largest audience to date, with the follow-up post going straight into second place in terms of hits.

Our Twitter feed was jam-packed with replies and we received plenty of plaudits for our efforts.

But what did we need to achieve this?

The answer: very little.

On the day, six contributors assisted with the coverage – including my co-editor Joseph Stashko and I – and all we had equipment-wise was a phone each, three cameras in total, and a handful of dictaphones.

This proved to be more than enough. We were able to delegate certain people to certain areas, while getting some fantastic audio, photographs, and video footage.

Protests often split communities, both in terms of opinion and physically splitting them. On the day of the EDL/UAF protests, Preston city centre was a ghost-town, other than the protestors, journalists covering the event and a handful of curious locals wanting to see what was going on.

But what about those that want to know what’s going on, but don’t want to risk being hit with a firework?

Well, that’s where hyperlocals come into their element. We were able to get the key information to the people that needed it, at the push of a button.

While traditional media were forced to call their copy in by phone, we were on the scene – providing information, to those who matter as soon as it happened.

Protests may cause division among communities, but hyperlocals bring them back together.

Andy is a student journalist, you can find him on twitter here, his blog here and he is co-editor of Blog Preston.

This piece is cross-posted from Wannabe Hacks’ Hyperlocal Week. Follow this link for a full list of content from #WHhyperlocal.

Image of EDL demonstration in Newcastle via Wikipedia.

The good thing about hyperlocal: it forces you to get over yourself

One of the first challenges you face as a young aspiring journalist is trying to answer these two questions: what is news and where do I find it?

It’s all too easy to develop a very grandiose idea of yourself as ‘a writer’, but the temptation to dazzle your readers with your intellect and impressive command of the English language can be your undoing.

Essentially I believe news is what people want to read, not what you want to write. That’s the best lesson I’ve learnt so far.

The great thing about hyperlocal news is that it forces you to ‘get over yourself’. There’s little room for academic essays, opinions pieces or philosophical debate in local news. It’s a question of working out what the people who live in your ‘patch’ are interested in and finding a straightforward way to inform them.

For example, an article about a specific pot hole may not be of any interest you but it’s of great interest to the man down the road who bumps through it every morning on his way to work.

A story is of as much of value to people because it’s happening locally as because it’s happening at all.

That’s not to say that local news and national news aren’t strongly linked. Just as your town’s paper will search for a local angle on a national issue, the national dailies will pick up or expand on local stories and the local press on hyperlocal stories.

I have been very lucky with some of the stories I’ve come across. One of the first articles I wrote for my patch in Moulsecoomb made the front page of the Argus the following day.

If I hadn’t been so focused on trying to get to grips with what was going on in this small area of Brighton then I would never have found this story.

Similarly, the first article I wrote during my internship at the Crawley Observer, about a Facebook campaign to bring back a local radio station, was referenced in an article written for the Guardian’s online edition the following week.

Truth be told I can’t guarantee that anyone from the Guardian ever read my article (although I like to think someone did!), but for me the mere fact that this campaign was mentioned offered some kind of validation that the highly localised stories I was writing really were ‘news-worthy’.

I definitely would not underestimate the value of hyperlocal news as a starting point for a young and largely inexperienced trainee such as myself.

I find it very encouraging that training courses such as the Brighton Journalist Works, where I study, are able to recognise this and use it to their, and our, advantage.

NPR: New York Times deputy metro editor on experimenting with hyperlocal

We’ll be doing a little bit of aggregation on the TNTJ blog this time around, flagging up content elsewhere that is relevant to the current topic. These will be simple editor’s picks, like we do on our main Journalism.co.uk blog, with the origin of the content signalled by the name at the start of the headline.

Among heavyweight national newspapers, the New York Times has pioneered the art of collaborating with local students on hyperlocal projects. The Times launched two pilot sites in conjunction with City University New York back in March 2009 (passing on control of one a little later), and another in New York’s East Village in September last year.

At the end of last week, National Public Radio’s On The Media programme spoke to Times deputy metro editor Mary Ann Giordano about the newspaper’s experiments, defining hyperlocal and whether the model can really make money.

Listen to the interview below:

See the full post on NPR at this link.