Philip John

  • Two men spent 24 hours taking over 2,000 photos and 4.5 hours of video, sending 79 tweets and 25 twitpics. That’s hyperlocal event reporting.

    Every year in Lichfield there is an event in Beacon Park called Fuse Festival. It’s an arts festival, with three tents hosting a various mix of music, performance and workshops. 2010 was it’s 10th year in Beacon Park and just like we did last year, Nick and I went down to cover it for The…

  • More House of Commons exposure for The Lichfield Blog

    Whilst discussing his vision for local TV during a House of Commons debate on the future of local media [& video], Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries Ed Vaizey mentioned The Lichfield Blog and it’s efforts in the local media landscape. In response to a request from West Bromwich East MP, Tom…

  • Stop bashing the BBC!

    Hooper: there’s a cloud over the BBC: has been too successful in too many areas, perhaps damaging local media industries #frontlineclub via twitter.com That’s a tweet from Heather Christie who was live-blogging the #frontlineclub last night. I wanted to point it out because I think Hooper is wrong to say the BBC has been “too…

  • Content creators are the ones moving journalism forward

    A while ago I spoke at the news:rewired conference organised by Journalism.co.uk about The Lichfield Blog and hyperlocal in general. The panel I was on got around to the whole ‘citizen journalist’ debate and who is or isn’t a journalist. I made the point (one I feel strongly about) that many hyperlocal bloggers do not…

  • How to protect your data: don’t give it away! And how Facebook isn’t to blame… much.

    This won’t be popular, I know, but the election did show me very well how we can all have very differing opinions and get along like a house on fire at the same time. So here goes… I won’t regurgitate the details, if you’re reading this you probably know what it’s about. Let’s look at…

  • The best route for Clegg is to get tough

    What Nick Clegg needs to do now is be tough with the Conservatives. They are on the back foot and desperate to get into power but Clegg holds the keys. Let’s face it, they’ll be no LibLab coalition – they just don’t have the electoral mandate. They’d need too much support from nationalists who would…

  • Why I’ll be voting Liberal Democrat

    This time tomorrow I will have marked my ballot paper with a big solid X alongside the Liberal Democrat candidate for Lichfield, Ian Jackson. Let’s put this vote in context first of all. In Lichfield, we’ve had Michael Fabricant as our MP since the constituency was re-established in 1997 and before that as MP for Mid Staffordshiresince 1992. I…

  • Michael Fabricant’s tweets: policy or playground?

    Many of my Twitter followers have today seen my passionate side as I exchanged tweets with Michael Fabricant over his use of the social networking site. He’s a little unfortunate in that he’s the only one of Lichfield’s four candidates to be active on Twitter. Labour candidate Steve Hyden is but hasn’t tweeted since February. That…

  • Spotify are digging their own grave by not going social

    There’s a phrase I picked up from somewhere a while ago and now use it quite a lot. It’s; No involvement, no commitment. The basic premise is that if you don’t feel involved in something then you’re less likely to be committed to it. Take work, for example. If you don’t feel as if you’re…