Ages ago (I was reminded when I was swapping the site about) we made a preposterous attempt to get Birmingham twinned with Timbuktu. Turns out we needent have bothered according to Birmingham News editor Ross Crawford:
“The difficulty in covering a city the size of Birmingham, is that many of the suburbs have little in common. If you live in Acocks Green, for instance, Great Barr is as remote as Timbuktu.”
Having lived in both Acock’s Green and Great Barr, I wish I could have had that quote to excuse why I never got round to visiting my mum – but what he’s on about is the weekly free paper being rebranded this week as seven local newspapers. A total of 25 people, who will be paid lineage rates, will file copy and pictures from their own communities – although they’re still calling them “citizen correspondents”.
Sounds like a plan, and I’m sure there are some great “citizens” out there. It sounds even more like a structure for a network of blogs, but the icbirmingham site isn’t up to that at all.
Are any of our local bloggers involved? If not they maybe they’ve missed a trick.