The Birmingham News Room – a well-executed information hub managed by Birmingham City Council has been launched and there’s a good write-up from Nick Booth over at Podnosh. I don’t have much to add to his account of it, and I’d urge to to have a good look around and think about the idea., but [...]
Posts under ‘The media’
Getting the politics right for reform
Matthew Taylor, former No 10 policy wonk, has an interesting article on his blog about public service reform. He rightly says that finances over the next few years are both a huge challenge to public services, but also an opportunity to make real change happen. That won’t come about, he says, without a change in [...]
Digital Britain – unconferences
For anyone interested in social inclusion and online participation, this is an exciting initiative. Go and have a look! Let me take this opportunity to tell my friends in Northern Ireland that I didn’t design the site though….
"It's only the older people who think of communities now"
There’s a really good, detailed bit of reporting here from Friday’s Guardian about the near-collapse of local newspapers in some areas. The starting point that Stephen Moss chose was my old local paper when I was young – The Long Eaton Advertiser. This bit stood out for me: “For the older generation, these things matter. “They [...]
Populism. And local newspapers.
Two very interesting posts – one via Chris Dillow, and one directly from his site. Firstly, Chris signposts this: “….perhaps it’s “populist” to think political elites always end up in bed with economic elites, but it seems, as a matter of fact, they often do. My opinion is that a certain “populist” enthusiasm for democracy, [...]
Councils v local newspapers?
A few weeks ago, Roy Greenslade picked up on a growing opposition to Council-run free newspapers. As he notes, the opposition comes both from smaller political parties locally, and from commercial rivals that are being edged out – as they see it. Elsewhere, we are seeing growing demands for a journalistic ‘bail-out’ – and not [...]
Who cares about the local paper?
Interesting report just published by the Pew Research Center, showing that: Fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available. These stats refer [...]
Counterproductive demands for transparency?
About a year ago, I heard snippets of a radio programme that really stuck with me. I didn’t make a note of the name of the programme at the time (I was driving), and it has taken me best part of the last year plugging away at the few contacts I have in the BEEB’s [...]
The commentariat and their version of democracy
I’d like to start a national campaign – if you’ll join me in it – in which the columnists who denounce the actions of elected politicians are obliged to step forward, say what they are in favour of themselves, and defend it. If this were to happen, I’d ask for The Times / Guardian columnist [...]
Digital Britain?
Bill Thompson thinks that it was cooked up in a smoke-free room, more like. Along with the OfCOM Public Service Broadcasting review, published recently, these issues are of huge importance. I say all of this as a prelude to urging you to visit Charlie Beckett’s excellent Polis blog where you can find an ongoing discussion [...]
