Manchester Evening News ramps up local council coverage with liveblogging
Journalists at MEN Media have been reporting live from full council meetings at authorities around Greater Manchester.
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The Manchester Evening news and its sister titles at the MEN Media group are using social media and blogging tools to increase their coverage of local authorities.
Journalists for MEN are using Twitter to send minute-by-minute updates from full council meetings at authorities around Greater Manchester.
Readers are able to follow the coverage and send their questions and comments to the reporters via CoveritLive blogs for each meeting on the MEN website, where the reporters' Tweets are streamed into the blog.
"People feel regional newspapers don't cover councils enough. This new service will help engage the public, councils and press and I believe it will help bring back local democracy," Paul Gallagher, head of online content at MEN, told Journalism.co.uk.
"We are working towards having the opportunity to ask questions at the end of meetings, proposed by readers through tweets, and are also looking into covering executive meetings where key decisions are made."
Readers are currently able to follow council meetings in Manchester, Trafford and Bury. The title has also started live reporting on the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and Manchester police meetings.
According to the paper, the service will be extended in 2010 to cover all 10 local councils in the MEN's area.
The feedback for the new service has been positive, particularly from councillors who are pleased with the increased regional coverage.
The MEN's move comes in the wake of recent criticism levelled at regional media for failing to sufficiently cover local democracy. The Press Association has also addressed the issue, announcing plans for a public service reporting scheme to provide a newswire for council and local authority meeting reports.
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