Papers ‘Should Cultivate Blogs’

Local newspapers should be working with bloggers to “win readers” rather than taking their content as and when they choose, says one blogger.

Blogger and Guardian writer Dave Hill asserts that local bloggers provide a good source of hyperlocal stories.

The author of an online diary of happenings in Hackney, Hill writes in the Guardian that bloggers and other local media could show “the way forward for journalism”.

He asks: “Why not regard bloggers as potential ‘citizen journalist’ allies in the battle to win readers rather than as cost-free sources of material to be plundered at leisure then insulted if they dare to complain?”

Hill concludes: “Established local papers have a choice: they can cultivate that help or they can scorn and exploit it.”