By Martin Stabe
Northcliffe is joining the current rush to podcasting by making
recordings of three columnists available across its network of 28
regional newspaper websites.
The initiative is being led by Paul Linford, a former lobby
correspondent whose political column for the Derby Evening Telegraph
and the Lincolnshire Echo is one of the podcasts available on any of
the “this is” websites run by Northcliffe Electronic Publishing.
Linford,
who is also NEP’s web development manager, said: “We are hoping to give
readers more reason to visit the sites and complement what the
newspapers are doing.
“It’s a new way of getting content to users. There seems to be a market out there for what is effectively a talking newspaper.”
Erik Petersen and Jeremy Lewis of the Nottingham Evening Post are also recording their columns for the service.
NEP
is planning to add podcasts produced by journalists at the Evening
Express in Aberdeen and The Sentinel in Stoke. A centrally produced
podcast of film and DVD reviews and a postmatch panel discussion of
Derby County football matches is also in the works.
The podcasts are produced by the columnists using their regular PCs and free software available on the internet.
The raw audio files are then sent for editing at NEP’s Derby headquarters.
Linford plans to travel to various Northcliffe centres to teach staff how to produce podcasts.
Archant’s
largest paper, the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich, has been a pioneer
among regional newspapers, offering a video podcast on its EDP24
website.
National print publications have been rushing to adopt podcasting.
The
Ricky Gervais programme produced by The Guardian currently tops the
download charts on Apple Computer’s iTunes service, and podcasts
produced by The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and New Scientist also figure
in the top 100.
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