EDP24: Local Business Directory
Sunday, 23 November 2008, 13:43
Map-based local business directory from Archant, similar to their property sites.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008, 12:41
Comments
Archant Suffolk’s web editor James Goffin on geotagging: "Every news editor should have a Google News email alert for the key towns on their patch, but text searching can’t tell the difference between the Yarmouths in Norfolk and the Isle of Wight. Fo
Evening Star polls users in interactive Christmas lights competition and map mashup
Friday, 4 January 2008, 10:51
Before Christmas, the print edition of Fleet Street 2.0 noted some festive Christmas lights map mashups, like those which have been produced for several years now by the Bakersfield Californian in the United States.
Here’s a good example of an online holiday lights feature from a British newspaper site: the Evening Star in Ipswich used a [...]
The ethics of geotagging
Thursday, 6 December 2007, 12:50
In a letter published in this week’s Press Gazette magazine, Tim Gopsill, editor of the NUJ’s magazine The Journalist, raises some interesting questions about the practicalities and ethics of geotagging news:
You report Archant bosses as saying that their ground-breaking plan to introduce postcode-targeted “personalised” websites will “require a change of thinking from our reporting staff”. [...]
@Beyond the Printed Word: Archant geotagging project delayed 9 months
Thursday, 8 November 2007, 16:50
The planned geotagging-based relaunch at Archant’s stable of regional newspapers will not go ahead for several months, the according the Norwich-based group’s development director.
Archant’s plan for its newspaper sites was first revealed in May, was originally scheduled to launch late this year, but will now probably only go ahead in the middle of 2008, [...]
Norwich journalist relaunches self-published football site
Monday, 2 July 2007, 18:08
Rick Waghorn, the ex-Norwich Evening News football correspondent who set out on his own online after being made redundant, has relaunched his website in the the first step of a plan to take his solo-publishing model nationwide.
Last year, Waghorn used a redundancy payout to set up a web site to cover Norwich City FC, the [...]
EDP’s FOI request on offender data stalls
Monday, 25 June 2007, 07:33
The Eastern Daily Press is having difficulty obtaining documents about the offenders who are removing electronic monitoring tags as Mnistry of Justice stalls on answering its Freedom of Information request. The new Ministry is taking more time to assess the public interest in disclosing the number of offenders who breached their sentences by removing [...]
Expert Eye: The new vids on the block
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 09:45
Ian Reeves looks at how he printed press is experimenting with video, from locals to the big players.
Archant plotting maps for regional news localisation
Thursday, 10 May 2007, 10:29
Regional newspapers are all about providing local information. But the legacy of print distribution has meant that the information on those sites has always been tied to a distribution area radiating outward from some regional urban centre.
Suburban areas and the marginal areas between various papers’ distribution areas tend to be badly served as a [...]
Text-to-speech may have a purpose, after all
Friday, 9 February 2007, 00:14
I tend to regard text-to-speech features on news web sites as something of a gimmick.
Earlier this week, I wrote a very brief item about a “virtual newsreader” being on the web site of the Welwyn and Hatfield Times, a weekly local paper published by Archant. I thought of it as a pretty offbeat story rather than some important innovation, and picked the funniest available quote to use.
But now my story is being passed around on a site called BlindNews, reminding me that there are important applications for text-to-speech technology. The little animated newsreader avatar is still superfluous, though.
MP pledges Early Day Motion backing journalists’ FOI campaign
Wednesday, 31 January 2007, 12:02
The Welwyn & Hatfield Times reports that local MP Grant Shapps is backing the paper’s opposition to Government plans that would water down the Freedom of Information Act.
Shapps also committed to back Press Gazette’s campaign on the issue by introducing an Early Day Motion opposing the Government proposals, which will make it harder for “serial requeters” like journalists to obtain information under the Act.
“I will be backing the Gazette’s campaign and am intending to put down an Early Day Motion in Parliament designed to put pressure on the Government to think again,” Shapps told his local paper.
Shapps should be applauded for his stand.
However, it will be interesting to see if those MPs who sign up to his Early Day Motion will also bother to turn up in the chamber to oppose a Private Member’s Bill designed to exempt Parliament from the FOI Act.
On its second reading a few days ago, David Maclean MP’s Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill sailed through the House completely unopposed.
If MPs like Shapps truly believe in the principle of Freedom of Information, they will also speak up to oppose a bill designed to exempt themselves from the law.
