Regular readers of my blog will know that I occasionally depart from my PR brief and blog about collocation in London and Northumberland, my family, chickens and rural issues. I am delighted to report that I now have a more sophisticated channel.
I’m onboard as a community correspondent on the Your Place project in the North East developed by the Trinity Mirror-owned Newcastle Journal. It’s created a network of 22-regional micro sites each of which are fed with content by local bloggers.
As a contributor I’ve been provided with a set of content guidelines and invited to post local news and information.
Northumberland editor Graeme Whitfield provides a light editorial touch and readers are encouraged to comment on posts and submit their own content.
Each micro-site each carries sponsored links, local ads and Google ads. It’s a smart model that returns regional media to its grassroots embedded within communities.
Could the Journal founded in 1852 be developing the new model for regional media?
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Hi Stephen
Interesting project. The Journal certainly needs to look at these avenues. Maybe I should put myself forward for Hexham….
But for now more importantly onto the subject of chickens. Have you made the mistake of naming them? We did with our first batch of 6 (including India and Duckling – my 5 year old’s idea) but this proved to create far too personal an attachment as proved in the space of 3 weeks when we lost them all (1 to a friend’s terrier, the next weekend to another friend’s dog and a few days later the rest to a a fox or badger) and general hysteria ensued. So now they are just hens. At least it got the kids immune to it, so much so that when a stoat dug into the guinea pig cage last week and had them (the guinea pigs that is) for breakfast the kids didn’t really bat an eyelid.
I’ve just had a thought for a new biz where we can bring a couple of things we have in common together – we could form a tech PR and chicken consultancy. Surely it’d be the only one in the market? Lets mull it over at Charlie’s next weekend…..
Ralph