News for Cheshire

News for Cheshire is the blog of the campaign to get the BBC news website to provide dedicated news coverage of our county, which it doesn't do. Currently, users of the BBC's news website have to hunt on the pages for Merseyside, Manchester and Staffordshire if they want Cheshire news. Other contributors are welcome, just get in touch if you'd like to write for the campaign.

Monday, March 31, 2008

New look, but no change

As expected, the BBC has begun rolling out its revamped News Online site. It's got a much cleaner look now, and is clearly influenced by the blogosphere in appearance and feel. There are some early teething troubles - many news stories today were published with varying font sizes on the page, which made things difficult to read.

Despite the freshen-up, one thing has not changed. There is still no Cheshire page. It;s business as usual for us licence-payers - if you want to know what's happening in our county then, as before, you will have to scour the news pages for Merseyside, Manchester and Staffordshire. Or choose an alternative news source. What a lost opportunity to add one extra page while redesigning the templates.

Not that you need have bothered - as usual, no Cheshire news was reported at all on News Online today.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

BBC news pages to get revamp

Journalism.co.uk has just published a news item on the forthcoming revamp of the BBC's news pages on its website. There's lots of talk of exciting new templates and expanded coverage, with embedded video, etc.

We are recording Ray Snoddy's Newswatch next Thursday (3 April) - wouldn't it be a delicious irony if the BBC decided to add our long-demanded Cheshire page as part of the revamp, just as I go on the box to moan about its absence!

Watch this space...

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Monday, March 17, 2008

TV date confirmed

The TV debate is going ahead. BBC News 24 was in touch again earlier today to confirm filming on 3 April, with broadcasting expected on 4 April.

My opponent on the panel will be Tamsin O'Brien, head of regional and local programming for north-west England.

Stay tuned...

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The lord has spoken...

The BBC has reported the latest update on the issue of the abolition of Cheshire County Council and its replacement by two unitary authorities.

The report quotes Lord Wade (the House of Lords was trying to force the government to rescind its decision) as saying: "(Cheshire) is a long-term historic county, to which those in it have a great deal of loyalty."

What a lost opportunity for the BBC to recognise this too, and give the residents of a Cheshire a decent online news service.

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

More zoo news

Yet again, the BBC's hottest news story from Cheshire is about Chester Zoo. This week it's all about a pregnant orang-utan that the Zoo didn't know was pregnant. That's 4 zoo stories since the start of 2008 alone, and 15 in the last 12 months.

One might be excused for thinking nothing much happens in Chester apart from zoo births if you only get your news from BBC Online.

Yet the top stories in this week's Chester Chronicle are far more varied. There's the ongoing faked sport stars' autographs trial at Chester Crown court, a major report on the urban impact on the Cheshire countryside, the unearthing of a medieval graveyard on the site of the old Chester police HQ, which is currently being redeveloped, and a visit by Margaret Hodge MP (culture minister) who met with more than 30 leading cultural representatives to discuss the loss of Chester's theatre and cinema in 2007 and related issues. There were also news reports on several serious violent assaults in the area.

Almost all these stories would have appeared on the BBC's news page for Merseyside if they had taken place in Liverpool. Yet they seem considered not worth reporting nationally by the BBC because they took place 25 miles away.

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