I co-founded my own hyperlocal at Easter with a colleague, although we’re trying to move away from being branded a hyperlocal as we cover a far wider area than one neighbourhood or so. We’ve picked up a good, solid readership in just over 3 months which I think does rather show that hyperlocals can thrive in the current climate. Whether they can make money is another issue, though, and obviously one we still need to test!

I agree absolutely that reporters can cover a wide area using modern technology. We do and make no bones about it. MEN has bigger, better resources than Inside the M60 and does so too. It was confirmed last week that the MEN will indeed move to Oldham – it’s good news that they will maintain a city centre office, which was unclear when I posted in February. I think MEN would struggle without a central presence, not so much from a reporting point of view but from a credibility one. Lack of city presence could lead many to question if a Manchester paper is really Manchester-based if it’s out in Oldham. So I think the decision to maintain a central office is a good one and the right one.

We’ll be watching how the future unfolds for MEN, as I’m sure many will be. And I do genuinely hope that things will improve for the staff there, although as TM has announced there will be another round of job cuts there and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the effect of that will be.

Your assertion that this is a great time for hyperlocals to spring up just because the MEN is moving to Oldham is based on the assumption that all the reporters will spend their time in Oldham. Surely, if you and one other person can report on stories from across Manchester on your hyperlocal site, then you know that technology makes it very easy for people to report from anywhere.

As for your point about BBC Manchester mopping up readers and turning them into listeners, a basic understanding of the roles different media play in people’s lives show this wouldn’t be the case.

I share your anger about the way the MEN was treated. I know many who work there and how hard they work, and how fed up they are at the sniping aimed at them. Under the circumstances, they do a great job. And hopefully, without a TV station and loss-making national newspaper saddled to them, the MEN might start to get a fairer deal.

My fear for the quality of the MEN under TM is not to do with the journalists working there but the fact that over the last year the quality of local reporting has already dipped heavily thanks to the swingeing job cuts. If the MEN moves to Oldham I seriously worry how some places will get covered – it was bad enough when the local papers had their staff moved into the centre instead of staying on their patch. How will areas like Sale get covered if the hacks are right over the other side of Greater Manchester? Carolyn McCall did suggest a couple of days ago that now the MEN had been sold she expected to see further job cuts there. That can only impact further on the amount of news being reported.

Of course I don’t expect MEN readers to all suddenly switch to the radio. My point, though, is that many may seek alternative places for their news if the MEN no longer reports on their patch.

And I totally agree about Channel M – the local joke is that only half a dozen viewers watch it, assuming they can even find it on the channel scanner. I don’t think anyone really understands why so much money – literally millions – has been wasted on it. And for what? That cash could have been used to support the MEN and the local weekly titles during the last couple of very tough years. I find that immensely sad, when so many good journalists have been made redundant but a shit TV station that no one is interested in watching continues to suck up funds.

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

This comment was originally posted on Twitter