One of the problems with the online space is the perception of distance and anonymity that it creates. It means that people often say things in ways that are harsher than they would in real life.

But do they even realise they are coming across that way? I’ve always wondered what the people behind the spikey comments on our blogs are like.

Richard regularly comments on The Birmingham Post blogs under the pseudonym “Clifford” and, it is fair to say, has developed quite a bit of a reputation as a curmudgeon. But, despite his criticisms of The Post, he has stuck with us even when we didn’t quite get things right.

For that reason I wanted to meet him and, I have to admit with some considerable trepidation, I invited him for a tour of our offices.

The man I met in reception could not have been further from what I expected – polite, erudite, passionate and engaged in local news. For his part, he was oblivious to the image he had been portraying to others online.

Of course the wider point is that those who engage on the internet need to remember there are humans behind the handles (or bylines) and try and think about how their comments might be taken.

However, I don’t see internet arcadia arriving any time soon, so I think it’s worth journalists seeing that not all aggressive commenters are always aware how they are coming across. It is not always personal.

Whilst with us at The Post, Richard kindly agreed to go on video and talk frankly about why he commented on the blogs and how he’d want to see the newspaper develop in the future.

Richard has also told me he is considering retiring Clifford and in future wants to comment online as himself.

In total the two videos come in at around 15 minutes long. I haven’t edited them much, as so much of what Richard said interested me and I wanted to keep it for future reference!

However, if you want to jump to a particular point, here is a guide:

Video 1 (above):
00:36: On how his comments were percieved by journalists.
01:53: On pseudonyms and putting personal details online.
04:48: On political coverage in The Birmingham Post.
05:49: On the development of Birminghampost.net.
07:00: On the need for web-first publishing (and why it won’t affect newspaper sales).

Video 2 (below):
00:19: Why scale is important in making a blog feel like a community.
01:36: What makes someone comment on a blog.
02:40: What blogs would work best on a newspaper website.
03:20: Why journalists should try and engage on blogs and not worry about bad comments.
05:42: On revitalising the Birminghampost.net blogs

I’ve was listening on the radio (You & Yours, I think) to a debate about the PPL and PRS licences businesses need in order to play music in the workplace.

As a quick explanation, this is from law firm Hammonds (warning – it’s a pdf):

Any copyright music which is played within a business and can be heard by more than one person (whether staff members or the general public) is likely to require a licence. This includes music played almost anywhere outside a private dwelling, for example in offices and factories; shops and stores; leisure facilities; kitchens; staff rooms; post rooms; and even music played on the telephone whilst customers are put on hold; as well as the usual public areas such as waiting rooms, restaurants and bars.

That lead me to think of all the newspapers sitting in cafes, bars and waiting rooms across the UK. Each newspaper is only bought once but many may read and benefit from it.

In some respects it doesn’t really matter how this has come to pass – whether it is because of competition from other platforms, the public perception of news being a right or just the newspaper industry historically undervaluing itself – the point it illustrates is that the news industry doesn’t really believe its content has any value other than to provide structure around which to place advertising.

This seriously effects how the industry can now move forward and, with such different attitudes to the value of their content, how can we suggest that the answers to the news industry’s woes can be found in the experiences of the music industry?

This is a quote taken from a conversation I had with a lawyer about her consumption of news:

“The problem is you people in the media are stuck in your own little world and forget that we’re also quite busy in our own little world and we don’t have time to keep up with what you’re doing.
“We don’t want to have to understand your RSS feeds, we just want to get the information that we need as quickly and easily as possible.
“Handing over 50p and getting that information printed on paper is an easy transaction. It makes sense.
“Fiddling around trying to understand and set up an RSS reader doesn’t.
“When it comes to information online the quickest way is to Google for it. Everyone just Googles.
“Then, if you find a useful easy-to-use site in the Google search results, that’s the site you’ll go back to.”

Why do we use newspaper instead of hardback books to distribute news?

Silly question, I know, but bear with me.

We use newspaper because – in the world of paper-based products – it is the most cost-effective, efficient way to transmit information to a defined audience on a regular basis.

But if there are new ways to transmit that information that is more cost-effective and more efficient (the Internet, for example), does that eradicate the value of newspaper?

Well, the people who queued outside The Washington Post for their special edition on Obama’s victory would tell you there was a value to print and it has been argued that this is proof that newspaper is still the format of choice for important events. “People didn’t print out the news on their computers”, goes the argument.

This is, of course, right. People didn’t print out the news from their computers. But then that doesn’t prove that web-delivered news is a lesser product or any less likely to disrupt the print media business. 

What it does prove is that there is an innate value placed on print that is not just defined by efficiency or speed of delivery. There is something valuable about it as an object, something to keep as a memory of an important occasion. Digital is, at the moment, still considered too transient a medium for keepsakes.

I know newspapers are great at creating special editions. Perhaps, however, there is a value in looking at how having a reputation for creating printed products could be used even more to our advantage.

Liverpool Daily Post’s current project of creating a book containing pictures submitted to their Flickr Group is a fascinating example. The value is not in the pictures themselves (which are mostly available online), but in the fact that they are in a big glossy book that can be kept as a keepsake of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture.

So, it was cheap and quick to print extra copies of the Washington Post on the day of Obama’s Victory. It made more money. What other print products could the Washington Post have sold on that day, or in that week? A special limited edition of all the articles it ran about Obama on the run up to the election? Some form of picture book?

Perhaps then, on some occasions, there would be a business case to argue that news would be better delivered in a hardback book…

Just been reading a post by Jonathan Kay that suggests the two biggest factors in the decline of print are the death of spare time and the death of community (thanks to Markmedia for the link).

The former struck a chord with me. I am a Radio 4 addict because I can listen to it while I’m doing other things (cleaning the house, commuting to work). I pick up the headlines whilst doing other things.

If time is becoming increasingly squeezed then I suspect the reasons behind someone dedicating half-an-hour of their time to reading a newspaper have to been even more compelling. Being on public transport and having a paper available for free is one of those reasons.

Even if the newspaper is a great product, with fantastic stories, it may not be something that fits into a person’s life easily.

So, when we look at how we can use technology to appeal to new audiences, perhaps we should be thinking media in terms of how much of a person’s time they consume.

Would the ideal be to make distribution ambient? This would mean stories would come to a person because they were part of their surroundings, rather than because they expressly decided to sit down and consume news.

This afternoon I’m popping down to Birmingham City University to meet Paul Bradshaw’s group of online journalism students.

They’ve been doing some fascinating work on developing an environmental news service, with each of them specialising in a different subject area.

Environmental news is close to my heart. I would love The Post to be giving more coverage to stories on sustainability.

But it’s also one of those subject areas that many readers regard with great suspicion. Look at The Times guide to the most popular environmental stories of 2007 and you’ll see what I mean.

So, I guess the big question is, can you write environmental stories in a way that builds trust between you and the reader? Is the current suspicion surrounding climate change – for example – caused by media sensationalism or poor scientific reporting? Perhaps it’s neither, maybe it’s just human nature to respond to environmental stories with suspicion.

I certainly don’t know the answer. But in a world where the hegemony of large news corporations is increasingly challenged, the issue of maintaining trust as a way to maintain audience is critical.

And, I suspect, if you find a way to crack the hardest nut of trust and environmental reporting, then you have probably struck gold.

I hear that staff at  The Coventry Telegraph have resolved their dispute with management.

I can’t find a link that confirms this yet, but I’m sure one will appear soon.