The lovely Sarah Hartley, who sadly for us is not based in Manchester any more, has instead been beavering away at Guardian HQ training up three so called ‘beatbloggers’ to usher in the future of local journalism.

Yesterday Sarah announced that they will be hitting their beats in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds as of next week with blogs to be launched in the first half of this year.

This is a really interesting project which the wider journalism community is watching with bated breath. Sarah describes them as ‘talented journalists’ so I for one can’t wait to read their hyper -local blogs.

On the subject of local journalism, I was chatting to the director of a local charity this week who was concerned that the local media didn’t seem interested in the great hands on work they do in the community with groups who generally don’t get a lot of good press.

Maybe hiring talented local bloggers is one way busy news organisations can penetrate deaper into the community they serve without adding massive overheads.

I really hope the bloggers can get onto their beats and into the lives of their readers and wish Sarah and her team lots of luck.

I’ll start by sharing with you the thoughts of fellow twitterer Tom Smith @everythingabili: “All those issues us liberals care about, but don’t actually bother to DO anything about, are finding a home on twitter. About time!”

It feels like almost every day for the past seven days the UK twitter community has been alerted to an injustice by one of its members and the tidal wave of protest that has followed has swept aside anyone in the way.

On Tuesday a ‘super-injunction’ gagged The Guardian but as the PR nightmare blew up in its face Trafigura became the top trending topic on twitter and the company, which has been dumping toxic waste off the coast of Africa, instructed its lawyers to back down.

Friday we had the abusive tube worker which you can now watch on the BBC but initially came to light in a blog and the tale of Jan Moir in the Daily Mail, who wrote about the death of Stephen Gately.

Boris Johnson stepped in to engage the twitter community directly and pledged to launch a full investigation, but the fall out of the Jan Moir story was wider reaching.

Following several high profile tweets from @derrenbrown and @stephenfry, the Press Complaints Commission’s website crashed as 21,000 people logged onto register their complaint about the article. The Daily Mail removed advertising from the online version of Jan Moir’s article after tweeters bombarded the advertisers.

Twitter changed things.

Yet a planned flashmob outside the offices of Trafigura lawyers Carter-Ruck only attracted “half of the promised 25 protesters“. A rather poor showing when you consider the millions of people hashtagging the word just days before.

Perhaps though this demonstrates the essence of the twitter protest. I don’t doubt that all the people who tweeted opinions and links really did care about the issues that arose this week but we’re all a little too busy to protest in person which has been the traditional method of making your voice heard and your presence felt by the powers that be.

Maybe twitter is the future of protest, maybe a twitter trend is the new march.

I can’t help but have a fondness for the Manchester Evening News. Following months of difficult changes, and the loss of many talented journalists and photographers, it’s interesting to see that they picked up the top title at the 02 Media Awards for Greater Manchester and Lancashire held at Urbis in Manchester last week.

On Friday (the day where 39 staff left the paper), we saw a presentation by an ex-MEN staffer at TEDx. Sarah Hartley is a good friend of the agency and is a new head of digital for the Guardian. She spoke openly about the future of journalism and the challenges the craft faces following the growth in hyperlocal community news sites.

Amongst other examples, Sarah flagged the East Salford Direct TV project, (billed as the regional alternative to CNN) who deliver hyperlocal TV news over the Internet, as an example of how the face of journalism is changing.

Sarah talked about how the growth in community journalism represented a major challenge to the traditional regional paper, and discussed how the two could find a way to work together.

Although there is no magic wand, Sarah’s talk highlighted an article that appeared on Talk About Local, which reviewed what a community news team would do if they were presented with a shiny new journalist to bolster their team.

I’ve copied this directly from the site, and it makes interesting reading:

add capacity – we have a great volunteer team but we are mostly busy in the day time. There are loads of things i would like followed up with some persistent phone wrangling during office hours.

bit more bite – there are quite  few issues in a rough area I am loath to follow up for fear of upsetting neighbours (one of my volunteer contributors had 14 windows broken in a planning dispute by someone with an air rifle).  Would be nice to have someone at arms length to tackle more difficult stuff.

court and crime reporting – in general any specialist reporting where contempt and special rules apply.

town hall stuff – there is so much guff coming out of the town hall it is hard to keep up.  Volunteers just can’t go to all the meetings we have a life to lead.  PitsnPots in Stoke-On-Trent demonstrates that you can have a whole site just devoted to the council.  This isn’t just a capacity issue there are lots of special skills required here that I kind of assume a well trained journo will have or could bring from their parent – keeping track of big property developments, understanding the budget, declarations of interest, expenses, procurement etc

skills transfer – i can write ok but no one has ever shown me any basic tips for writing to get attention without being sensationalist and the basics of libel etc

build links – if the bins are being emptied badly in Midford as well as Little Snoring at the other end of the county is there a bigger picture from sticking the blogs together?  And in general just network things together a bit.

broker relationships to syndicate local content – i like it when the paper reuses my stuff, as long as they ask, which they do.  I publish it so that people can read it.  But it is childish that they don’t give me a link.  I don’t kid myself that they make any money from my stuff so i don’t expect to be paid.  Might be nice though if the local rag makes a donation to a local charity say for young people every time they lift a piece.

It’ll be 12 months before the next Media Awards, and it’s difficult to predict what the media landscape will be like. Who knows, perhaps some of those ex-MEN staffers will turn their hand to the hyperlocal community sites and even East Salford Direct TV might be in the running . . . .

I know we’ve been seemingly quiet over at Democracy Towers for a while. We’ve been getting our new website sorted, and fingers crossed within the next few weeks it’ll all be done and live.

For those of you who know us, the past few months of silence have felt like some kind of gag – and new website launch or not, we simply couldn’t wait a moment longer to share what we’ve been upto.

Today, we’re out and about at TEDx, meeting old and new friends alike as we share our thoughts on all things digital and looking forwards to the next communications challenges and opportunities.

The speakers are:

Matthew Postgate, Head of Research and Development at BBC Future Media and Technology

Phil Griffin, Architectural Commentator
Sarah Hartley, Digital Editor at The Guardian
Dr Mariann Hardey, Social Scientist
Marc Goodchild, Head of Interactive and On Demand at BBC Childrens
Ben Light, Professor of Technology and Society at University of Salford
Hugh Garry, Senior Content Producer for BBC Radio 1 and 1xtra (a late change from the original line up)
Paul Coulton, Nokia

If you want regular updates on the event, keep an eye on Twitter for the hash code #TEDxMan.

Lots more news coming soon, in fact there’s so much good stuff going on right now I can’t wait to tell you about . . .

A friend of mine once told me that they considered blogs a bit like pens – almost anyone can use them to share the written word – put they don’t make you Shakespeare.

It’s this, along with the growth of micro blogging, that has fueled the argument that blogging is dead. After all, if any man and his dog can share what they had for breakfast then who cares?

The truth is, some blogs receive more hits than the national press. Knowing about your chosen blogging subject is central – but it’s the quality of the writing along with making it relevant to your audience that will keep people coming back for more.

Today, I read in the Guardian about a blog that has done just that – well written, engaging and colourful – based on the personal experience of a British policeman.

“Night Jack – an English Detective” is an insight into the everyday life of the police. Case stories and policing procedures sit alongside practical advice on how ‘nice people’ should use the same tricks employed by the ‘baddies’ when dealing with the law.

Night Jack has just been awarded the Orwell special prize for blogs – and the anonymous author, who stopped posting this month, has pledged to donate the prize to the Police Dependents’ Trust. He’s now considering writing a book.

Of the millions of blogs online, it’s the power of the public that decide what will be followed – and quality, as always will win out.

This week, we’ve been swotting up on the mummy blogs and even that of the marmalade fantics – all of them doing well because, just like Night Jack, they’re well written, know their stuff and understand their audience. Wannabie Shakespeares – take heed.

People are following me on Twitter. This in itself seems rather odd to me, even odder that it’s usually American evangelical Christians.

Today though upon checking my emails I discovered that one of my new followers is Trafford Centre Shop which is quite possibly the first viable business use of Twitter I’ve seen.

It’s a simple concept: if you follow them they will send you updates on what’s on offer in what shops in the Trafford Centre. Today HMV’s Easter Sale has started.

To my mind this is the perfect way for Twitter to make someone some money. If I live in Manchester knowing what’s on sale at the Trafford Centre might make me pop out and buy it.

Following Apple and The Guardian is interesting but it’s not about to make me head out for today’s paper and another mac.

Perhaps teaming up is the way forward. If all the sandwich shops in Manchester were telling me their daily special in one feed I’d be truly realising the potential of Twitter.