The Limerick Leader, the Galway Independent, and the Mayo News all use their Facebook pages to remind people that they exist. The Mayo News’s page is particularly impressive as it has almost 1,500 followers and frequently updates the page with competition details.
The Carlow Nationalist revamped its website in 2009. It has two Facebook pages – one for news and one for sport. The sport page is regularly updated (along with its Twitter page) and has almost 2,000 fans. This represents about 1 in every 25 people in County Carlow.
The sport section of the website has exclusive content. Their blog features contributions from staff and freelance writers, as well as a selection of photographs which didn’t appear in the paper.
The most noticeable part of the website though, and by far the most publicised, is its video section. The first video was uploaded in May last year, and over 100 more have been added since. The most watched video – of a controversial disallowed goal at a county club semi-final - has over 1,800 views. Other videos include interviews, match highlights, local events such as pitch openings, vox-pops, victory speeches, as well as news coverage from the local election count centres.
In particular, The Nationalist’s sports editor, Terry Reilly, works hard at developing the paper’s multimedia presence. A free text service is available to readers, with results from local games sent to phones straight after the final whistle. These are also published on the paper’s Facebook and Twitter pages. The online videos usually appear the following day.Last summer I began working on videos for the website, combined with match reports for the print edition. The interviews were a direct overlap – it was a simple case of transcribing the words and inserting these into the copy. On occasion, reviewing footage of contentious refereeing decisions was useful for writing better-informed copy.
It would be impossible to record an entire match and take notes for the print article (which takes precedence). There was a lot of luck involved in catching the game’s key unforeseen moments – and I’d a good run of luck when it came to penalties where I often happened to record the foul itself as well as the penalty.
It’s particularly impressive when local media can provide a comprehensive service online. Traditionally, the online realm was confined to national media organisations – and that link does remain in The Nationalist’s case, as the site is hosted and supported by Thomas Crosbie Media. If ‘all journalism is local’, then it’s inevitable that the internet was going to catch up with that some day.
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