Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » The Liverpool Daily Post

#FollowJourn: @alisongow/executive digital editor

Mykel Hutchinson — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:11:19 +0000

#FollowJourn: Alison Gow

Who? Executive digital editor

What? Part of newsroom overseeing all things digital at the Liverpool Daily Post and Liverpool Echo

Contact? alison.gow [at] liverpool.com

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.Similar Posts:

#FollowJourn: @kmatt/head of web and data

Mykel Hutchinson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:30:28 +0000

#FollowJourn: Kevin Matthews

Who? Head of web and data at the Liverpool Daily Post.

What? Journalist: Head of data and web development, Trinity Mirror Merseyside: Liverpool Echo, Liverpool Daily Post and Merseyside Weeklies.

Where? @kmatt

Contact? kevin.matthews@liverpool.com

#FollowJourn: @davidhiggerson/head of multimedia, Trinity Mirror

Laura Oliver — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:25:55 +0000

#FollowJourn: David Higgerson

Who? Head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror; executive editor Birmingham Post and Mail.

What? Oversees multimedia developments for Trinity Mirror’s regional titles.

Where? @davidhiggerson or on the Liverpool Daily Post’s politics blog.

Liverpool Daily Post: Madeleine McCann keywords in every main local news story was ‘oversight’

Judith Townend — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:34:27 +0000

It was an ‘oversight’ that Madeleine McCann related keywords were included in the metadata for every main local news story on the Liverpool Daily Post site, a Trinity Mirror spokeperson said, after Journalism.co.uk informed the company that the terms were present in the ‘hidden text’ of a series of unrelated news items.

The automatic inclusion of the keywords “madeleine mccann, madeleine mcgann, kate mcgann, kate mccann” in the HTML for Liverpool news stories has now ceased.

Journalism.co.uk learned in May that specific keywords, including those above, were used in the metadata for the ‘Liverpool News Headlines’ section on the Liverpool Daily Post site, regardless of the story’s relevance. This continued for at least one month before it was drawn to the Post’s attention on Monday (June 29).

Use of unrelated ‘hidden’ metadata is commonly known as ‘keyword stuffing’, a practice which Google firmly discourages. Using popular keywords can help improve a site’s SEO performance. [Update: Google and most other search engines are no longer believed (Wikipedia link here) to recognise these tags: see Lammo.net post at this link.]

Google search results for “Madeleine McCann + Liverpool” shows that the Post and its sister site, the Liverpool Echo, have top rankings for related Madeleine McCann stories. [Update: but lower rankings when a simple Madeleine McCann search is performed. It's unlikely the addition of the keywords aided the LDP's Google ranking. Google says: "While accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won't impact your ranking within search results."]

A Trinity Mirror spokesman said: “The metadata was inserted some time ago when the Madeleine McCann story was at its height and was the most-searched item on our web sites. It was inserted to make it easier for our users to access a huge story of national and local interest. The fact that it wasn’t removed is an oversight, which has now been put right.”

The evidence (before Liverpool Daily Post corrected the error this week):

A story about Len Williams, a well-known waterfront manager who recently died.

Keywords in the HTML version:

The section of the site which used these keywords for all stories:

Google’s definition:

“‘Keyword stuffing’ refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

“To fix this problem, review your site for misused keywords. Typically, these will be lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated. Check carefully, because keywords can often be in the form of hidden text, or they can be hidden in title tags or alt attributes.

“Once you’ve made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration.”

A definition by Nathan Campbell on SEO.com:

“Some unethical SEOs choose to employ renegade tactics such as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is overloading the content or meta tags of the web page with every possible keyword or phrase that relates to the site in many different forms.”

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Liverpool Daily Post scores scoop with reader’s FOI request

Laura Oliver — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:15:19 +0000

Today’s story from the Liverpool Daily Post on council staff taking sick leave was the result of a Freedom of Information request made through democracy website www.whatdotheyknow.com.

And how do we know?

Because the source and links to the information released through the FOI request are included at the bottom of the article. A nice touch.

(Thanks to Andy Dickinson for telling us about this)Similar Posts:

Redundancy round-up: 50 jobs to go at the Telegraph and 78 at Trinity Mirror

Judith Townend — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:56:17 +0000

A day that saw plenty of job cut announcements. Here’s the roundup for this evening and Journalism.co.uk will update tomorrow.

Trinity Mirror: 78 jobs to go as reported at Press Gazette and Hold the Front Page. Press Gazette reported that a restructure will see journalists divided into four centralised multimedia divisions:

“The publisher has today entered into a consultation period with staff and said it envisaged 59 editorial jobs would be cut. It said it was committed to voluntary redundancies where possible.

“The bulk of the job losses will come in Liverpool, where the 175-strong editorial team will be cut to 132 and the Liverpool Daily Post will scrap its Saturday edition.”

The Telegraph: 50 jobs editorial jobs cut: Fifty editorial staff are to lose their jobs at Telegraph Media Group, management told staff today.

“It is understood the cuts represent a 13-14 per cent saving to the editorial budget and will be brought into effect by Christmas at the latest,” reports MediaGuardian.

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Looking at the Liverpool papers live blog coverage of the Rhys Jones murder trial

Judith Townend — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:13:28 +0000

The Liverpool regional papers, the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, continue their comprehensive coverage of the Rhys Jones murder trial using Cover It Live technology, which allows the reporter to feed back detailed information about what is happening in the courtroom.

The liveblog of the Rhys Jones trial is currently on standby, but should be going again at 14.30 today. The Rhys Jones coverage can also be viewed together on one page.

For ease of reading back through, it would be good to have the live court coverage more clearly marked with dates and days of trial in the left hand margin next to the times.

On October 9 the Liverpool Daily Post’s editor, Mark Thomas, asked for feedback, but it seems none has been offered.

It’s an impressive feat, which has been going since October 9, and brings up questions of modern day court reporting: it will be interesting to see if it enters the public panel discussion at this week’s POLIS debate at LSE. They’re debating ‘Respect for Contempt: Keeping Speech Free and Trials Fair’.

With a panel that includes Maxine Mawhinney from BBC News 24 as chair, and contributions from Joshua Rozenburg (Legal Affairs Editor, Daily Telegraph), Jonathan Kotler (US Attorney and USC Annenburg School of Journalism), Mark Haslam (partner, BCL Burton Copeland, and Nick Davies (Guardian, author of Flat Earth News), it should make for an interesting set of much-needed discussions.Similar Posts:

Evening Leader plots UFO sightings with Dipity

Laura Oliver — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:44:57 +0000

Nice use of timeline builder Dipity by the Evening Leader: the paper has plotted videos and text reports of UFO sitings in the area onto a timeline, turned it into a widget and embedded it on its website.

What’s extra nice is that the Dipity widget lets readers look at the info as a timeline, map, flipbook or list. Using the third-party service helps the newspaper get extra mileage out of what are no doubt already popular online stories.

The feature has also been made ‘public’ through dipity’s site to help drive traffic back to the Evening Leader.

The tool has previously been used by the Manchester Evening News for its coverage of a proposed congestion charge for the city; and the Liverpool Daily Post to create a 24-hour snapshot of Liverpool as this year’s European Capital of Culture.Similar Posts:

LiveBlogging across the Trinity Mirror titles: as we type

Judith Townend — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:31:05 +0000

Trinity Mirror regional titles, Newcastle’s Journal, the Birmingham Post and the Liverpool Post have joined forces to report on the economic situation on this live blog, happening right now, as we type this post.

It’s charting the falling FTSE share index and the Liverpool Daily Post reporter Alison Gow twittered this morning that it is the brainchild of Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves and the head of regional multimedia David Higgerson.

Its purpose: “to provide live information on breaking news surrounding the banking crisis, as well as informed opinion from our team of experts across the country,” the administrator wrote at 12.19.

The poll shows that 63 per cent of voters think that yes, the government should offer 100 per cent protection on all savings.

At 14.23 Sion Barry of Media Wales writes that the length of of the recession ‘really is the golden question. Some sectors of the economy have been in recession from a while… just ask a housebuilder.’

The papers are using Coveritlive.com to create the blog.Similar Posts:

More from Dipity: Manchester Evening News plots congestion charge coverage

Laura Oliver — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:29:48 +0000

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.Similar Posts:

Liverpool Daily Post runs online diary to mark capital of culture status

Laura Oliver — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:11:26 +0000

The Liverpool Daily Post is running an online diary today to mark Liverpool’s status as the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

Using online service Dipity, the Post has created an interactive timeline with contributions from readers and its editorial team to capture ‘a day in the life of Liverpool’.

The pictures and text submitted can be plotted and viewed on an interactive timeline or Google map, or browsed by text and images.

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Liverpool Daily Post surveys online readers for GP investigation

Laura Oliver — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:39:08 +0000

The Liverpool Daily Post is using an online survey to quiz readers about their experiences of getting a doctors appointment in the city.

The responses will be used as part of an investigation by the paper into GP services on Merseyside.

The nine-question survey, which has been created using online poll site SurveyMonkey, asks readers to give their location or postcode so information can be compared geographically.

(Thanks to the JP Digital Digest for flagging this up)

The paper has used the survey format to inform regular features in its ‘Make The News’ section and is currently running polls on GSCE and A-Level exams and the local property market.Similar Posts:

Liverpool Daily Post runs four-day liveblog

Laura Oliver — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:47:14 +0000

The Liverpool Daily Post is embarking on a four day liveblog to cover the visit of the Tall Ship to the Mersey using CoveritLive.

Following previous Post experiments with the liveblogging tool, the blog will feature text, images and videos from the event sent by the reporting team.

The paper is also asking readers to submit comments and images by text, and participate in the blog online.

Coverage has started today and will continue till Monday evening.Similar Posts:

How news flows though the partially integrated newsroom of Liverpool Post and Echo papers

Oliver Luft — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:23:56 +0000

The Hub and Spoke laying out may be in vogue for the majority of those adapting to an integrated newsroom but you’d be hard pressed to call Trinity Mirror’s Liverpool nerve centre anything other than an archipelago.

Alison Gow, deputy editor of Liverpool Daily Post, gave Journalism.co.uk a quick tour and explained how a partially rather than fully integrated newsroom for Liverpool’s Daily Post and Echo newspapers and a portfolio of weeklies served them best.

Similar to other large cities in the UK, Liverpool’s morning paper, the Liverpool Daily Post (typically 15,000 copies circulated per day) and the evening Echo (109,000) serve vastly different markets. To account for this the newsroom has integrated but also demarked areas where each paper’s interest is best served by not mixing processes.

The newsdesks of the Post & Echo had previously been fully integrated but the unsuccessful experiment lasted only 18 months and end in 2001, as it didn’t fully serve the needs each paper had and met with opposition from staff who were resistant to working on the other title.

“I suspect the industry is a lot more broad-minded now as we work across print, internet, TV and radio,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk.

COPY

The dailies and weekly newspapers have adapted and refined a partially integrated newsroom where the two main papers share news copy, but keep diary and features separate.

“A government minister in town would tend to be interviewed by a Post reporter,” Gow told Journalism.co.uk. “That copy would be sent by the Post newsdesk to the Echo newsdesk to be rewritten and subbed down. Echo page leads are around 350, Post 600 plus.

“The Post & Echo share a court reporter but the very distinct target audiences of both papers means what makes a splash in the Echo, gangster trials for example, may struggle to make a page lead in the Post.

“Inquests would be covered by one reporter whose copy would be shared between both papers.

“An exception would be Liverpool council meetings – mostly covered by the council reporters from both papers as it’s a contact-building exercise as much as anything.”

The Echo can also publish stories from the weeklies the day the papers are published, Gow added, as the assistant news editor has access to their content queues.

“It’s a co-operative system and involves the newsdesks, picturedesk and multimedia desks talking to each other. That’s why the command desk is so important,” added Gow.

STAFF

At the centre of the archipelago – the big island – is the command desk where Post and Echo news editors and their deputies sit along with a picture editor who works across both publications and the Echo design editor.

Reporters are title specific, as are the features and sports teams, and both papers have separate features and sports editors and deputy editors, Arts editors and motoring editors.

A multimedia head, working across both titles, also sits on the command desk. As on the web, Gow says, the two publications have ‘more fluid identities’.

Each department desks now has embedded digital journalist. Under the old system ‘they just used to sit in the corner away from everyone else’ said Gow. Now they espouse the need for web content and ensure the website remains an area of focus for each department on each title now that they break 99 per cent of their stories online.

Video is a separate entity altogether – one video journalist is responsible for managing libraries, cutting pieces and training newsroom staff and reporters in video-journalism.

She has trained eight other staff so far, giving them a week’s hands-on training so that they can manage handicams and cut footage. They aim for a new web video each day.

SUBBING

A pool of eight subs work across the Echo, the England and Welsh Daily Posts, Huddersfield Examiner, the Chester Chronicle, the Merseyside and North Wales weekly papers on a rota basis.

There are also title-specific staff who work primarily for each paper – ‘champions’ of each brand, adds Gow.

This approach has shifted subs from thinking they work for a single publication, she said, to a ‘hive-mind’ where they work across several titles.Similar Posts:

CoverItLive launches branded option

Laura Oliver — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:11:25 +0000

Liveblogging service CoverItLive has introduced a branded option for its embeddable blogging service – thanks to Simon Dickson’s Puffbox blog for pointing this out.

Publishers can now build custom templates to apply their logo or masthead to the liveblog.

The service was recently used by the Lancashire Evening Post for a feature on the UK’s pub industry and the Liverpool Daily Post to open up the paper’s editorial operations.Similar Posts: