Liverpool papers' new blog gives local politicians unmoderated access

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Trinity Mirror's Liverpool papers have taken a new direction with the launch of their latest group blog, aimed at increasing political engagement amongst its readers.

The new Liverpool Party Central site will see the leaders of the five main political parties in the area contributing posts in the build-up to the forthcoming election. The politicians will be able to publish directly to the site, using a basic content-management system for which they have their own logins.

But the initiative is designed to go beyond the next election, Kevin Matthews, head of data and web development at Trinity Mirror Merseyside, told Journalism.co.uk. The group blog will be opened up to councillors and other party workers.

It could also be extended to include politicians representing other districts in the Liverpool Daily Post and Liverpool Echo's areas, with standalone sites for these areas creating a network around the Party Central site as a hub.

"We are trying to give people the opportunity to interact with the politicians. We're trying to increase public engagement with politics in a way that we’ve not done before. The party leaders like the idea that they will be able to engage with larger numbers of people than they were," he said.

The Post already has "some excellent political bloggers", said Matthews, but the idea behind Party Central was to provide views that haven't gone through "a middle man". Contributors have been encouraged to respond to comments left on their posts and are aware that it is in their best interests to do so and as such Matthews is not concerned that unmoderated content will prove problematic.

The title is working on some cross-promotion for the site in the papers' print editions to encourage an offline audience to interact with the group blog.