MEN: Manchester Evening News launches iPhone news app

The Manchester Evening News (MEN) has become one of the first UK regional titles to launch a news application for the iPhone.

The free-to-download app, which was launched on October 2, has already been downloaded 1,000 times, according to an MEN report.

MEN, which has a mobile site, will tap into smartphone users with the app and also encourage users to share news items on Twitter and Facebook.

A short video of the app, which was developed by Spreed Inc – who also created Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail’s iPhone app, can be seen below:

Full story at this link…

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MEN harnesses multimedia for English Degence League protest coverage

The Manchester Evening News scored an online success last Saturday as 17,400 people followed its live news story as a protest organised by the anti-Islamic political group the English Defence League (EDL) was met by the Unite Against Facism (UAF) group.

Journalists and photographers used online reporting tools such as mobiles, video and Twitter to keep the MEN site updated on injuries, arrests and other developments over eight hours, the title reported.

Reporter Dan Thompson provided information throughout the protest from the Greater Manchester Police control room in Sedgley Park, while reporters Mike Keegan, Deborah Linton and Pete Bainbridge in Piccadilly Gardens used their mobile phones to provide pictures and video, and report on Twitter.

The team pulled the coverage together using liveblogging application CoveritLive.

Using the commenting facility on the liveblog and MEN website, readers were able to ask which areas were safe to visit, and find out how transport and shops were being affected.

According to the MEN, one of the live coverage’s followers, the wife of one of the police officers on duty at the protest – said the live updates put her mind at ease about her husband’s welfare.

The MEN deployed similar techniques in its coverage of police raids in the city in August.

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Manchester Evening News tweets live from police control room

Three thousand police officers hit the streets last Friday for Operation Admiral – a series of co-ordinated raids over a 24 hour period, aimed at hunting down Greater Manchester’s most violent drunken thugs.

During the operation 672 people were arrested and multiple weapons found including an AK-47 machine gun with a rocket launcher.

Manchester Evening News (MEN) reporter Dean Kirby was in the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) control room from 9am through till just after 5pm using Twitter to provide live updates to the MEN website, which were streamed via a CoveritLive blog.

Readers of Kirby’s coverage began leaving comments from as early as 11.35 am, one anonymously advising that ‘They need to concentrate more on Rochdale’.

Throughout the rest of the day sporadic messages of support filtered in from the public, one such said, ‘well done GMP keep up the good work’. In response assistant chief constable Garry Shewan thanked ‘the public for their strong support over the last 24 hours’.

The MEN’s online coverage provided a host of stories in the weekend’s print editions – broken down by the 12 divisions of the Greater Manchester Police – and several online follow-ups.

The MEN has previously made good use of data from news stories online – see its homicide map for the Manchester area – so figures from the raids could provide a starting point for new visualisations.

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The Drum: ‘BNP begins complaint campaign aimed at MEN’s advertisers’

“The BNP is encouraging its supporters to complain to the Manchester Evening News’ advertisers following the paper’s editorial stance urging readers not to vote for the party in next week’s European elections,” reports the Drum.

[If you're not registered, you'll need to do so first in order to read] Full story at this link…

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Motions from Manchester: “This chapel declares it has no confidence in the Scott Trust”

The Manchester Evening News National Union of Journalists Chapel has passed the following motions at a mandatory meeting held today, and sent this email to GMG Regional chief executive, Mark Dodson.

To: Mark Dodson
Cc: Paul Horrocks; Jim Banham; Carolyn McCall; Liz Forgan
Subject: MEN NUJ chapel resolutions

Dear Mark,

At a very well attended, mandatory meeting earlier today, the MEN NUJ chapel unanimously passed the following resolutions:

• This chapel extends its thanks to the Guardian/Observer chapels for their declared support;

• This chapel deplores the company’s refusal to invoke a 90-day consultation period which could have been used usefully to explore other options and urges it to think again;

• This chapel declares it has no confidence in the Scott Trust or the GMG board;

• This chapel believes that Dame Liz Forgan, in her role as chair of the Scott Trust, has a moral duty and responsibility to speak to journalists at the MEN and its weekly newspapers and those at Surrey and Berkshire about how these devastating jobs cuts chime with Trust values BEFORE they are implemented;

• This chapel supports the weekly newspaper chapels in their decisions and pledges to support them;

• This chapel agrees to ballot for industrial action, up to and including strike action;

• This chapel reiterates its willingness to meet management at any time to talk with a view to resolving the current problems.

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MediaGuardian: Manchester Evening News weekly offices to go – 150 jobs axed

“MEN Media, the publisher of the Manchester Evening News and 22 weeklies based in the north west, is closing all editorial offices of its weekly newspapers and axing 150 jobs,” reports MediaGuardian.

Production of the group’s weekly newspapers will be centralised in the MEN offices in Scott Place in central Manchester, the report continues.

Full story at this link…

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More from Dipity: Manchester Evening News plots congestion charge coverage

The Manchester Evening News has used free online tool Dipity to create an interactive timeline of the paper’s coverage of a proposed congestion charge for Greater Manchester.

The timeline features text and images from key dates in the ongoing story, dating back to January 10 2005.

The information can also be displayed and browsed by text-only, images-only or on a map.

The Liverpool Daily Post recently used the same online tool to create an interactive timeline for its diary of a day in Liverpool.

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