Deborah Harries – Head of News on the launch of www.birminghamnewsroom.com
So here we are then.
The press office at Birmingham City Council has moved into the 21st century and after months of hard work we’ve finally launched our online newsroom.
This is an exciting development for my team and hopefully this site will prove to be a useful resource for journalists, bloggers and residents.
We haven’t quite read the last rites to the press release but the world of media relations is changing.
www.birminghamnewsroom.com is about effective news management and using a package of multimedia tools to get our messages across.
People consume news in many different ways now and we’re keen to reach a wider audience through the burgeoning and exciting range of social networking tools available.
Don’t get me wrong, this is far from the finished article and we’re looking for your views to help further develop the service.
We’ve already had a lot of help, encouragement and advice from people in and around Birmingham’s thriving new media scene. People like Nick Booth, Jon Bounds and David Harte have been fantastically helpful and we really do appreciate their interest and advice.
The fact that Birmingham was the first UK regional city to have the opportunity to quiz Lord Carter on the details of his Digital Britain report last week speaks volumes for the creativity and innovation in this city. Digital District Go Ahead
Birmingham is most definitely a digital city and we’re now delighted to be playing our part.
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Thanks Kevin
Some useful suggestions – we’re already working on improvements and the feedback really helps.
Geoff
This is fantastic! Not only is it good to see that the public sector world is making moves into the social networking field, but it’s good to see local authorities leading the way.
I’m very confident that this will prove really useful for journalists and hope that it will become a case study for others to do the same. Maybe then the social media idea can also filter down to the other areas of local authorities that are engaging the public (such as community development, leisure, adult (and younger) learning.
In terms of suggestions for improvements, I think this is pretty close to right already. Only things I can think of is an events calendar with an “ICAL” output, so journalists (and others) can add them to their own calendars. Putting the galleries out as an RSS feed or on Flickr or similar would also allow people to subscribe and mashup the content elsewhere.
But I think this is a really good job…and I’m watching this space.
Thanks Nick
As Deborah Harries said in her opening blog, we owe you a huge thank you.
Your ideas and encouragement helped get this off the ground.
Geoff
I want to echo what Jo has said, congratulations.
This is a wonderful platform for potentially a whole new relationship between the council, the city and the media.
Hi Deborah,
I just wanted to congratulate you and everyone who has worked on Birmingham Newsroom.
This really is looking like it could become a really great resource for Birmingham residents and journalists alike.
Keep up the good work!