Beatbloggers prepare to operate the parish pump

"Local meetings and events ... identifying grassroots issues of importance to residents ..."
The work of your trusty local newspaper reporter? Maybe, but the words actually appear in a sits-vac ad for the rather more broad-church Guardian. They've coined the word "beatblogger" to cover a new role to be employed in three UK cities - Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
Guardian Local is, according to those recruiting, a small-scale experiment in local news gathering and the beatbloggers will be at the coalface. They'll report from events and meetings using a range of tools – text, photos, video and audio, they'll identify and link to material produced by bloggers, journalists and other sources and they'll build a network of community contacts.
There's a lot more too - the beatblogger will identify opportunities for partnerships and collaborations to build content, he or she will nourish links to other online resources and will be responsible for ensuring all elements of the local page are fresh and relevant.
There's a whole lot more too - check out the job description at http://bit.ly/2Ph9qi - so could this be an intriguing peek into the future or will the experment fizzle out like a Cheryl Cole solo project?
Launch editor Sarah Hartley is quoted as saying she's impressed by the "range and depth of coverage from local websites and blogs." Indeed, this material has been evolving beautifully - and there'll be many more great advances to come.
A piece from the Guardian (below) also touches upon the themes of local being important, of one US broadcaster winning huge public funding for a local news project and of the possibility that the Press Association could be subsidised to cover local courts and councils.
So let's hope the Guardian invests in (and appropriately rewards) genuine journalistic talent to fill its beatblogger roles - and let's hope even better things come of the wider movement back towards local accountibility

See http://bit.ly/yxDN

Oi, Rusbridger - take ' em camping!

A week into our Guardian subscription and I have a message for the good newspaper folk at the Scott Trust: "You've missed a trick!"
Me and Claire plumped for the pre-October subscription "sale" because we knew it'd save us cash ... and because we love the paper. It's quality, it's fun and it airs opinions that are always carefully thought through and argued. It's so good, in fact, that we plunged all the way in and now have vouchers for every day of the week.
The recent sales pitch that hooked us in was prolonged, intense, colourful and thoroughly credible. But it wasn't without its faults.
And here's why the newspaper sales manager needs a good talking to. Not once in the pitch did he or she flag up the bounteous beauty of picking up a morning paper once again.
With just five editions under my Pepe Jeans belt I've managed to enjoy more early morning birdsong than even that time in the mid-80s when Beast and Browny suggested: "Let's spend a couple of nights kipping under canvas in the foothills of Pen-y-ghent - either side of torturing ourselves with the Three Peaks Walk."
This season's black 7am autumn skies are necklaced by seafront streetlights around Swansea Bay. Even better, at that time the world hasn't yet been sullied afresh by humankind in the gas-guzzlers that plummet down Wimmerfield Drive towards another day of office oblivion.
So thanks, Guardian, for enlivening each day with nature, a refreshing complement to your prose and pictures. But do yourselves a favour before the next big sales push ... send the subscription marketeers on a camping weekend somewhere remote.

Trinity's unholy outlook

Bad news has been a feature of newspapers since the industry began - it sells papers don't you know.
Today, the fact that the doom-laden messages now focus on the news business itself was brought into sharp focus. Trinity Mirror - a margin-hungry nationwide PLC which recently announced an operating profit of almost £50m - has announced the closure of South Wales twin titles the Neath and Port Talbot Guardians.
It'll mean the loss of 15 jobs, a fight by National Union of Journalists members to highlight their heartfelt concerns for print's future ... and the drastic diminution of the crucial local information network for two great Welsh towns.
Neath (population around 47,000) and Port Talbot (35,000) deserve better than the cold, distant relationships offered to them by regional dailies the Western Mail and the South Wales Evening Post. They've enjoyed the warmth of the Guardians for 80 years; the journals have been a cornerstone of their communities.
Which non-Establishment enterprises will now hold in close check the tax-heavy goings-on at the local council and in the courts? Which media will genuinely celebrate the next rugby trophy won by Neath RFC, Aberavon RFC - or by the neighbourhood under-11s? How many ticket sales will be lost at the local cinema, theatres and operatic society presentations? When the hospital wants to publicise news of new visiting hours, the politicians of their surgeries and the police of their Pact meetings - what effect will the loss of the Guardians have?
The demise of the Neath and Port Talbot Guardians - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8273676.stm - is alarming. And they won't be the last local rags to go in these trying times; if you live in a smallish town with a tidy looking weekly newspaper please look after it, support it, buy it.
Good luck to anyone in line to lose their job, best wishes to the Trinity Mirror journalists fighting their corner and all strength to any ... body energetic enough to work hard to rebuild the crucial local media network in those two great Welsh towns.
As newspaper-loving townsfolk are denied their own local papers, here's where Trinity Mirror stood in their latest half-yearly financial report (June 2009) - group revenue £383m, digital revenue £18.6m, operating profit £49.1million.
Have a word, someone!