Bloggers come in to the M.E.N

The Manchester Evening News opened its doors and welcomed in the city’s bloggers last night.
Having a foot in both camps (being both a blogger and an MEN journalist) perhaps means I have a rather biased view of the event but it seemed to be that this landmark media event was a great success.
Don’t take my word for it, have a read of some of the other postings. So far I’ve seen this one from Jon Clements but I intend to blog all the links on the subject – just as soon as everyone posts them to me.
The Manchester bloggers meet-up at the M.E.N started with a tour of the multi-media newsroom where guide Helen Read was able to tell us more about the history of the paper and show some historic front pages from the archives.
(This was a first for me too – discovering that pigeon messengers were regularly employed to carry important breaking news in the 60s was amazing although some of us more techy journos do have a suspicion that ‘s how some of our systems operate even now!)
The group then heard from design editor Peter Devine, assistant news editor Paul Gallagher and the chief sub Paul Coates, who explained their roles in the organisation, before having a Q&A with deputy editor Maria McGeoghan.
A thorough debate about comments and moderation soon ensued – something I’m intending to return to in greater detail on my personal blog at some stage soon.
Adjourning to the pub (which ended up being the nearest despite pledging to go to Dukes following the result of the online poll – apologies) the debate continued roaming into areas of MP3 bloggers being closed down, the future (and predicted lack of future) for printed news, social media and PR.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who hopes that we don’t leave it so long for the next Manchester bloggers meet up. Hopefully this will prompt more chances to share ideas and experiences – soon.
Btw, I’ve started putting some pictures from the event on Flickr and tagged them menblogmeet.
If you blogged the event – send a link to my email or post below so that we can round up everyone’s activity.
See you all soon.