Strange places to find railway news

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/leisure/national/entertainment

On Monday morning last week, I boarded the 7:38 am train from Trowbridge, not just to travel to Swindon but to sell the tickets too.

It was a great way to celebrate the launch of the new regular TransWilts rail service, and to meet the local commuters who are benefitting from it. etc

Excellent article headlined "Duncan Hames, MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Melksham and Bradford on Avon - Thank Coalition for your extra trains" ... just surprised at the Lancashire Telegraph

[Brucey]

12:00pm Friday 20th December 2013 in Entertainment News

I'd hardly say this is entertainment.

[bobm]

Oh I don't know - it amused me.... 

[grahame]

Perhaps this is a better link to the same story ...

http://www.stourbridgenews.co.uk/leisure/showbiz/10889789._/?

[stuving]

Perhaps this is a better link to the same story ...

Except that it's still listed under "Showbiz"!

These are both Gannet papers using the Newsquest site, and the story appears to be on all of them. Since it's been tagged as "national" and "entertainment" news, it's not going to vary from one title to another.

What is unclear is why it got tagged like that. Most items on that list are credited as copyright PA^▸ (Public Address), but this one has no source at all - so presumably it's from one of their own staff.

[Phil]

It's possible their link is simply scouring the interwebs for mentions of the word "Bradford" and assuming that all references are going to be of interest to readers living in Lancashire, without checking that there is in fact more than one place named Bradford.

[ellendune]

It's possible their link is simply scouring the interwebs for mentions of the word "Bradford" and assuming that all references are going to be of interest to readers living in Lancashire, without checking that there is in fact more than one place named Bradford.

1) Bradford is the other side of the Pennines if you are up north forget this at your peril!

2) That would not explain how it ended up in the Stourbridge news.

[JayMac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford,_Manchester 

That's historically in Lancashire

Couldn't find one in Worcestershire though.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Interestingly, that particular article, which appears to have been written by Duncan Hames himself, also appears on the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald website:

Duncan Hames, MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Chippenham - Rail service is now back on track thanks to grant

12:00pm Thursday 19th December 2013 in News

On Monday morning last week, I boarded the 7.38 train from Trowbridge, not just to travel to Swindon but to sell the tickets too. It was a great way to celebrate the launch of the new regular TransWilts rail service, and to meet the local commuters who are benefiting from it.

I^ve been working with First Great Western and the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership for a number of years to get this service up and running, and I am delighted that it^s been made possible by a grant of more than ^4 million from the coalition government.

Eight trains a day are now running in each direction along the line between Westbury and Swindon, Monday to Saturday, stopping at Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham.

That^s a big improvement, particularly for the people of Melksham who had their service cut to just two trains a day each way eight years ago.

I hope that in the new year plenty of local people will take up this option and prove its worth.

This sort of government investment for a stronger economy in Wiltshire is very welcome, and I am determined to ensure that it doesn^t stop there.

A fortnight ago, Liberal Democrat Treasury Minister Danny Alexander set out the government^s plans for ^375 billion-worth of infrastructure projects.

In Parliament last week, I pressed him to include Wiltshire College^s proposed new Chippenham campus in those plans.

I^ve already urged the Skills Minister and even the Prime Minister to ensure the college receives the funding it needs to rebuild the campus and help our young people acquire the skills that will enable them to get on in life.

Returning to Wiltshire, I toured the Shreddies factory in Staverton, where investment in their combined heat and power plant has cut carbon emissions by 9,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 3,600 cars off the roads.

I met a student spending a year in industry as part of her sandwich course, and a recent graduate on the firm^s graduate trainee scheme, who is already making her contribution to health and safety in a business that clearly takes great pride in its operations.

I look forward to witnessing more and more opportunities created for young people as we build a stronger economy in the year ahead.

I also completed three well-attended constituency surgeries, bringing my total for 2013 to 52.

The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald headline is different, and refers to him (correctly) as the MP for Chippenham, rather than as the 'MP for Melksham and Bradford on Avon', as he is described in the Lancashire Telegraph and the Stourbridge News.

I just wonder how many readers of the latter could actually point to Melksham on a map, without a gentle hint?  Indeed, I'm rather puzzled as to why Duncan's update piece (excellent though it is) about his own local constituency matters was apparently thought to be of any particular interest to readers in Stourbridge or Lancashire ... 

[Chris from Nailsea]

In terms of raising his profile outside Wiltshire, though, Duncan does seem to be doing rather well: he's also now appeared in the Hereford Times under Showbiz and in the Congleton Guardian under National Entertainment News. 

[Phil]

1) Bradford is the other side of the Pennines if you are up north forget this at your peril!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bradford,_Lancashire

[Brucey]

Other media outlets featuring this "showbiz" story include The Craven Herald & Pioneer and The Press (York).

[stuving]

These are both Gannet papers using the Newsquest site, and the story appears to be on all of them. Since it's been tagged as "national" and "entertainment" news, it's not going to vary from one title to another.

What is unclear is why it got tagged like that. Most items on that list are credited as copyright PA^▸ (Public Address), but this one has no source at all - so presumably it's from one of their own staff.

This is weird - I though that post of mine explained everything. Maybe it wasn't clear enough. Or got filed in some parallel universe where only I can see it...

If you go and look at the Newsquest web site at http://www.newsquest.co.uk/portfolio/our-titles/, you can see for yourselves what's going on.

Pick any title via its regional menus, then find the /national/showbiz/ menu - or the menu names may be different, such as leisure or entertainment, as the surface of the web sites is customised.

That Duncan Haimes piece is there on all of them. One of the economies of scale of today's big local newspaper groups is in handling this kind of national news content, which can be done centrally (though there may be a way of adding local pieces).

Obviously this piece should never have been put on the national "showbiz" list, but having made that mistake it appears on the sites of all papers in the Newsquest group (itself owned by the bigger Gannet group of papers). I don't suppose any of them would put it in their print editions. 

All the other items I could see on this menu were credited as ^ Press Association 2013 - this had no attribution, so presumably it belongs to the Newsquest group (and is covered by their blanket copyright claim).

And it's still there, so this content is obviously not closely monitored by Newsquest. I wonder how many of the local titles have been contacted to ask or tell them about it? Perhaps these days people only do that on line. The on-line comments are of course separate for each title, and you would have thought someone on one of them would have twigged by now.

[stuving]

The on-line comments are of course separate for each title, and you would have thought someone on one of them would have twigged by now.

I was wrong about that - the comments go into just one national list. That makes sense if the story is national, though perhaps not if the ensuing discussion is about local issues. Also, a few of the Newsquest titles have separate websites.