This is not a transaction. I blogged the other week about The Lichfield Blog’s print debut in the Birmingham Mail with an article I wrote about Fuse Festival. It sparked a nice few comments and I thought they warranted a second blog post to clear one thing up. The printing of that article was not one side of a transaction, nor was it ever going to be. In the comments Ed Walker and Ventnor Blog specifically mentioned payment but as Ed pointed out in a further comment, hyperlocals like ours are set up for many different reasons. Have no doubt that we are not in it for the money at TLB, not least...

I asked the Prime Minister about accountability within the ‘Big Society’ I have mixed feelings about the Big Society. I’m all for devolution and more decision making power for communities, but I worry that the coalition’s plans will see local accountability suffer as more and more public services are provided by charities,  private companies and social enterprises who are not subject to transparency legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act. So today, at Austin Court in Birmingham I had the opportunity to put this question directly to the Prime Minister, David Cameron; With the Big Society empowering charities, private companies...

The day my hyperlocal blog post was published in a major regional newspaper Plenty of people will be skeptical about this bit of news but boy am I excited. I’d love to hear if this has happened before or not, but so far it’s the first time that I’m aware of, and I’m chuffed it’s me. If you pick up a copy of the Birmingham Mail today you will see, on page 29, an article about Lichfield’s Fuse Festival that I originally wrote for The Lichfield Blog, and with pictures taken by our resident photographer, Nick Brickett. This represents the first fruit from what looks like a very healthy tree of collaboration between the...

Two men spent 24 hours taking over 2,000 photos and 4.5 hours of video, sending 79 tweets and 25 twitpics. That’s hyperlocal event reporting. Every year in Lichfield there is an event in Beacon Park called Fuse Festival. It’s an arts festival, with three tents hosting a various mix of music, performance and workshops. 2010 was it’s 10th year in Beacon Park and just like we did last year, Nick and I went down to cover it for The Lichfield Blog. We did a bit more this year, though. Between us; over 2,000 photos over 4.5 hours of high-definition video 79 tweets from dedicated account, @Fuse_Live 25 twitpics In total we worked for 24 hours, doing 6 hours on Friday, 11 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday. We managed...

More House of Commons exposure for The Lichfield Blog Whilst discussing his vision for local TV during a House of Commons debate on the future of local media [& video], Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries Ed Vaizey mentioned The Lichfield Blog and it’s efforts in the local media landscape. In response to a request from West Bromwich East MP, Tom Watson who referenced another West Midlands hyperlocal, The Stirrer, Vaizey said; …the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must not lose sight of the fact that there are hundreds of different initiatives that are involved in the...

Stop bashing the BBC! Hooper: there’s a cloud over the BBC: has been too successful in too many areas, perhaps damaging local media industries #frontlineclub via twitter.com That’s a tweet from Heather Christie who was live-blogging the #frontlineclub last night. I wanted to point it out because I think Hooper is wrong to say the BBC has been “too successful”. Rather, local media hasn’t been successful enough in the face of competition from the BBC. Discuss. P.s. I accept local media may have been held back by ownership rules which, IMO, just stifle competition...

Content creators are the ones moving journalism forward A while ago I spoke at the news:rewired conference organised by Journalism.co.uk about The Lichfield Blog and hyperlocal in general. The panel I was on got around to the whole ‘citizen journalist’ debate and who is or isn’t a journalist. I made the point (one I feel strongly about) that many hyperlocal bloggers do not see themselves as journalists despite what some journalists deciding to label them as such. Rather, they are just active citizens who happen to be using some similar techniques to play an active role in their community. Anyway, I digress. Martin...

How to protect your data: don’t give it away! And how Facebook isn’t to blame… much. This won’t be popular, I know, but the election did show me very well how we can all have very differing opinions and get along like a house on fire at the same time. So here goes… I won’t regurgitate the details, if you’re reading this you probably know what it’s about. Let’s look at this sensibly; Facebook is a web site – it’s on the World Wide Web, a globally-accessible, publicly-available open network. Your Facebook is protected by a password- that’s all. No secure server, nothing. So it’s not that secure anyway. You...

The best route for Clegg is to get tough What Nick Clegg needs to do now is be tough with the Conservatives. They are on the back foot and desperate to get into power but Clegg holds the keys. Let’s face it, they’ll be no LibLab coalition – they just don’t have the electoral mandate. They’d need too much support from nationalists who would soon drop their support when their primary aims comes up. Neither Brown nor Clegg could ethically claim to be PM and putting in David Milliband or Harriet Harman would prompt “unelected PM” outrage. So we’ll either have a LibCon coalition...

Why I’ll be voting Liberal Democrat This time tomorrow I will have marked my ballot paper with a big solid X alongside the Liberal Democrat candidate for Lichfield, Ian Jackson. Let’s put this vote in context first of all. In Lichfield, we’ve had Michael Fabricant as our MP since the constituency was re-established in 1997 and before that as MP for Mid Staffordshiresince 1992. I have no doubt that he’ll get re-elected and, where it concerns Lichfield, I’m quite glad – he’s a good MP. So why vote Liberal Democrat? I first took a proper interest in politics during the 1997...