Preston Returns: Journalism and the Market

So today we spent the day with Jeanne Hill learning about the art of good marketing and about the need to get editorial and marketing departments in newspapers talking to each other more.

I think it has become a universial stereotype that marketers and journalists are hardly the perfect image of interdepartmental communication bliss. Journalists often mistake marketers for salespeople and take a “holier than thou” attitude to their supposed editorial integrity. Marketers, I think, assume editorial are incapable of grasping much more than a pen and paper, when it comes to the fundementals of running a newspaper.

But, of course, we’re all in the same business and today was a great insight into how marketing can be used to better understand and then target a readership.

We also assessed the way in which readers are referred to in the newsroom. This sparked a conversation on Seesmic where I asked the community how they wanted to be percieved by journalists (wish this would embed).

Some very interesting repsonses are here (Documentally), here (solobasssteve), here (Pete Ashton), here (Cataspanglish) and here (Hache). There were many more that raised very interesting points, but you’ll have to log onto Seesmic to see the full conversation!

What comes out a lot is that if a reader feels even slightly as if a journalist is not respecting the reader then they will simply go elsewhere. There is an acceptance that objectivity is a myth and that social media provides an opportunity to critique journalists and build a relationship with them, which then provides context to their work.

Obviously most of these guys (and they are all guys) are early adopters, but it was certainly an interesting exercise.

Pete Ashton is on stage again!

At the Fray Cafe at SXSW: “Pete Ashton y’all. Give it up. Give it up.”

SXSWi… it all starts from here.

Wow! Well this has been a strange 48 hours.

Quick catch-up:

Having raced around London on Thursday evening to pick up a Nokia N95 to use in SXSW, I hot-footed it to the Media Guardian Awards with Stef and Pete who were picking up an award for Created in Birmingham.

Those who follow the above pair’s Twitter streams will know the evening was… well… eventful. Pete and Stef will have more to say on this than I as, I’m ashamed to say, I missed witnessing Pete’s “Jarvis Cocker” moment. But, considering how disappointed all the nominees from the blogging category were about their lack of recognition at the awards (and how much free alcohol was flowing), I suspect someone was going to do something.

Then, after an hour’s sleep in a Travel Inn, we trudged bleary eyed (and sore of head) over to Gatwick for the flight to Houston, Texas. Quick change in Houston onto a flight to Austin (including a very nice chat with the immigration officer who was amused when I defined my profession as “being a geek” – he even told me a Star Trek joke).

Nowwe’re in the Fairfield Inn, Austin which has free wifi (why can’t UK hotels do this?!) and waiting for the other three SXSWM-ers to arrive.

Here are the obligatory shots of the view from my room:

and…

Stef, being the dynamic and frankly enviably capable person that he is, has already organised for the SXSWM-ers to meet a fantastic array of people here, including Phil Campbell, the guys from Viddler and Shawn Morton from Profilactic. I am so excited about this!

Right, got less than ten minutes to grab a shower before we’re off to check out the parties. Remember to visit the SXSWM website to tell us what to do. And, if you’re in Austin – get in touch!

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

I remember being shown this video by Pete Ashton, about the same time as I first dipped my toe into the blogging pool. I watched it again today in amazement at how much more I understood about social media and how much I still had to learn.

If you haven’t seen it (and I know it has done the rounds on the web for over a year) it is an introduction to the social Internet by Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.

I’ve realised I need to keep re-visiting it as I make my mistakes and learn my own lessons about the web. So, I thought I’d post it here:

Could The Post website use Flickr?

I have said before that the Birmingham Flickr group is a wonderful thing, and I know that others appreciate it too.(thanks CiB for the link).

There are so many fantastic pictures of Brum on Flickr, I would like to see the new Birmingham Post website showing and linking to them. It would certainly help showcase the talent we have in the city.

Indeed, it is something that was suggested when I asked for ideas for the new site.

But not everyone in the Birmingham Flickr community is going to want The Birmingham Post publishing their picture on our website. We wouldn’t have the right to do so anyway, unless we contacted the photographer first to get express permission, or they had relinquished all their IP rights (which is very rare).

So, what could be the solution? Pete Ashton suggests that The Post creates it’s own Flickr group, which people submit Birmingham photos to on the understanding that they may be used in a certain context on The Post website and will, of course, be credited.

But I wonder, with the plethora of specialist groups out there on Flickr, how keen are photographers going to be to submit to a Birmingham Post group?

Any advice and ideas from members of Flickr, and particularly the Birmingham Flickr group, would be gratefully received.

The Brummie of the Year is…

John Tighe.

Congratulations John!

As landlord of The Spotted Dog pub in Digbeth, John has battled against a noise abatement order served against the pub, after live music at the venue (which has been going for 20 years) affected some of the residents in a new apartment block built nearby.

A campaign website related to his plight (set up by a resident from the very same apartment block) keepdigbethvibrant.co.uk tells more.

Also congratulations to runner up and mentor to the Birmingham blogworld, Pete Ashton.