links for 2009-03-22

"The images of the children were taken last summer and show a typical scene of garden square life in a quiet side-street – a location that many families would deem semi-private and where they would have a reasonable expectation of privacy". In his Twitterstream last night Iain Dale was suggesting that the BBC tried to steer him away from discussing this on the BBC News channel paper review.

One of the first times I've ever seen the BBC engage and be open about a website redesign and not immediately be swamped with "OMFG did you let the work experience kid do it? If it ain't broke, waste of my licence fee etc etc" style comments. If you compare it to the reaction to the overall blog re-design, you can't help feeling it must have something to do with the Radio 4 audience.

"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."

"Within a few hours Mitch Benn had 500 new followers, but he was still only following 42 people. The programme is repeated today. How many followers will he have by this evening? If he’s only following 42, well, he’s missed the point of Twitter. Here’s the primer; it’s about being social, not about being followed. You have already got 1.5 million listeners for that."

Interesting Q&A with Drew Broomhall from The Times includes this: "If you want to chase big numbers then you risk losing brand distinction, because you're going to have to publish outside your niche. If all publishers start using the likes of Google Trends, Blogpulse and Twitscoop to drive editorial agenda then we're in danger of creating a homogenous media."