#Tip: Be creative and location-relevant with vox-pops

By cogdogblog on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Trinity Mirror Regional’s digital publishing director David Higgerson blogged some thoughts on vox-pops late last week, which could inspire some creative thinking for others before they head out to capture quotes in the future.

Some of Higgerson’s tips include, as the journalist, being situated somewhere as relevant to the story as possible, to encourage the best contributions.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: 12 tips for using Storify

By Ivy Dawned on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Last month digital publishing director for Trinity Mirror regionals David Higgerson blogged about Storify and the way journalists can use it to curate and search social media. Here is his post outlining 12 tips on using the platform.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – 11 social network search engines

David Higgerson, head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals, has compiled a list of 10 social network search engines for journalists.

It was published last year but provides really handy pointers on social media search tools.

We’ll add Topsy to the list (a previous tip of the day).

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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David Higgerson: Tweeting FOI requests? ICO got this wrong

Last week we blogged about how the Information Commissioners Office’s had clarified where it stood on the use of Twitter to submit freedom of information requests, confirming that such requests may be valid.

But head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals David Higgerson wasn’t convinced that this was such a great idea. In a post on his blog he explains why, including the character limit imposed on Twitter, having to make a public request and the chances of a request not going direct to an FOI officer.

So when the ICO says that ‘Twitter is not the most effective channel for submitting or responding to freedom of information requests’ what it should actually be saying is: “Twitter is never a good way to deal with FOI requests.”

Read his post in full here…

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David Higgerson: Journalists must keep pushing for open data

David Higgerson, head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals, has published the address he made about data journalism at the FutureEverything conference in Manchester last week, making some interesting points.

Higgerson says that for journalists the biggest challenge is going to keep “pushing” for data to become available.

Councils have to issue details of all spending over £500 – but some councils have decided to publish all spending because it’s cheaper to do so. As journalists, we should push for that to happen everywhere.

FOI is key here. The more we ask for something under FOI because it isn’t freely available, the greater the chance its release will become routine, rather than requested. That’s the challenge for today’s data journalists: Not creating stunning visualisations, but helping to decide what is released, rather than just passively accepting what’s released.

Read his post in full here…

Journalism.co.uk is running a one-day digital journalism conference looking at data in the news industry next week at Thomson Reuters. news:rewired – noise to signal will take place on Friday 27 May. You can find out more information and buy tickets by following this link.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – FOI request ideas

Looking for some inspiration for story leads? Check out this list of 20 example freedom of information request ideas on David Higgerson’s blog, to help get the ball rolling. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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David Higgerson: ‘Actionable’ news and what it means for data journalism

David Higgerson blogs about the idea of ‘actionable’ news – a phrase that he first heard at last week’s Society of Editors conference from Reuters’ Jodie Ginsberg:

I see actionable news being right at the heart of the idea of data journalism. Information may well be freely available in a way we’ve never seen before, but that doesn’t mean the role of the storyteller has fallen by the wayside. As long as the writer who gets to grips with a spreadsheet of data is also plugged into the community they serve, and knows what they are interested in, then we’ve got actionable news (…) It shouldn’t be a revelation to journalists – after all, newsroom planners have certain data-rich days marked in every year, such as GCSE league tables day. But rather than be dictated to by a government planning calendar, journalists who can marry data access to issues which impact on people’s lives can provide make their work, and the titles they work for, more relevant to an audience than ever before.

Full post on David Higgerson’s blog at this link…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – search engines for journalists

David Higgerson has followed up on a previous post on search engines with this new list of alternative search platforms which could be useful for journalists digging for information. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

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Six pre-request FOI questions for journalists

David Higgerson, head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals, regularly blogs about Freedom of Information requests, from best practice advice to what he’s learned thanks to FOI requests each week.

In his latest post he warns that there is a danger that journalists may “default to FOI” too often, which can have an impact on the quality of the results they get. In order to get the best responses he suggests posing a series of questions to yourself before requesting the information. In summary they are:

1. Is this information available elsewhere?
2. Will they release the information to me without going through FOI?
3. Is there another way of getting this information?
4. Do I need to think about jargon in my FOI request?
5. Are there examples of the information being released elsewhere?
6. What reasons for refusal could a public body come up with?

Read his post in full for detailed advice…

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David Higgerson: Tell your readers about failed FOI requests

A blog post by David Higgerson, head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals, this week addresses the issue of FOI request refusals and what he thinks journalists should do if they hit a brick wall in their attempts to get information.

He argues that it is important for journalists to not only try to get the information for their readers, but to inform their audience of their endeavours if the material itself cannot be released or reported.

Some see journalistic use of FOI as reporters just finding ‘easy leads’. But if reporters and journalists are working on behalf of their readers, then surely it makes sense to tell readers when they can’t report information

See his full post here…

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