March 22, 2010 7:30 PM - 24 attended

Second Brighton Future of News Meetup (March)

The Skiff (map)

Selected By: Judith Townend

The second Brighton Future of News meetup will focus on the general election. It's a prompt 7.30pm start at the Skiff, and it should go on till about 9pm - after which we'll head to the pub across the road.

We're keeping it to one speaker so there's plenty of time for group activity and questions, which proved quite popular last time (do let me know if you think differently!)

Richard Pope, web designer and developer is coming to talk to us about online activity surrounding the upcoming election. He's going to tell us about Democracy Club and the Straight Choice, new online transparency projects set-up for monitoring the election.

Richard is involved in MySociety, the fantastic non-profit democracy organisation, and also behind a new tool for opening up data, ScraperWiki, soon to launch. Scraperwiki recently ran a successful 'hacks and hackers' day, so he's got some ideas about how developers and journalists can work together.

As before we'll take questions, perhaps have a little bit of a debate, and then break out into groups to brainstorm our own election-themed, or political, projects. So if you've thought of something nifty you'd like to do online to coincide with the election, bring the idea with you!

Oh, and there's a Facebook group now! http://www.facebook.c...

Hope to see you on the 22nd!

  • Sarah Booker Lewis
    Sarah Booker Lewis

    Any biscuit/snack items requests?

    Posted March 18, 2010 at 11:56 AM
  • Paula O'Shea
    Paula O'Shea

    Can I change my status from may be to a yes?

    Posted March 18, 2010 at 12:18 PM
  • Sarah Booker Lewis
    Sarah Booker Lewis

    Go for it Paula. It should be easy to do by clicking on the "change your mind" part.

    Do you have any opinion about doughnuts?

    Posted March 18, 2010 at 1:31 PM
  • Az Shah
    Az Shah

    Thanks to Sarah, the session was very well run and the venue was fine. Richard presented an interesting topic though its relevance to journalism is questionable. The system is far too open to abuse and would risk the rep of any journo that used it. Given the name of this group I had hoped for something on the lines of www.tattlerapp.com (which is not a plug as it is opensource).

    Posted March 23, 2010 at 8:48 AM
  • Richard Gurner
    Richard Gurner

    Really enjoyed this MeetUp. Think the Democracy Club and the Straight Choice can both become really useful tools this May if journalists encourage readers to take part.
    I agree with Az that the straight choice could be open to abuse but that doesn't mean it can't be used by journos as long as they get their hands on a hard copy of any election pamphlet and verify where it has come from.

    Posted March 23, 2010 at 9:52 AM
  • Judith Townend
    Judith Townend

    I've pasted this quick round-up on the Future of News site: http://futureofnews.journallocal.co.uk/2010/03/30/brighto...

    Posted March 30, 2010 at 9:27 AM
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24 attended
4.00 4.004 (4 ratings)
  • Event Host
    Judith Townend
  • Event Host
    Sarah Booker Lewis
    Organizer
  • John Keenan
    I was intrigued by Richard Pope’s presentation and came away with a couple of ideas about how journalists can keep the politicians on message. I also enjoyed the post-presentation exercise. If the group wishes to attract more non-journos I guess the topics will have to be broadened. But for me it was an evening well spent.
  • Dan Wilson
    I enjoyed the session. But concerned the speaker adressed his talk directly to journalists and indeed the group sessions were aimmed at journalists imagining themselves to be politicos. I am not a journalist, but I am a blogger and still interested in the future of news. I'm also a political activist. Not sure I should have been the poacher at this gamekeepers' event. I found the speaker's talk very interesting but negative and unprovocative and not necessarily focussed on anything but "we'll catch one of the buggers out". It seems to me that we can make changes here, quite sad we didn't explore the 'how'.
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