Man Convicted of selling fake Virgin Media equipment

[TheCoder]

Originally Posted by brian

Janet Harris used to work for a press release writing agency, and she'll be using multiple sources for any particular story she's covering. I can ask her to try and provide more detailed coverage in future.

Darren Allen writes more involved blog-like posts, usually with a streak of humour where possible, and I think these probably work better for the site.

It is pretty hard to get a balance with news at the moment - advertising revenues are down quite a lot since the recession hit, so it's hard to find writers who are affordable, reliable, and knowledgeable.

The company I run is still a home office business, and the writers are freelancers who work from home as well - no movie-style big media office and The Times-style payrolls here.

However, I take the criticism as constructive - I am on the look out for further news writers for the news section, specifically someone who can write intelligently about any digital TV issues - I'll make more of an effort to try and get someone else in.

ah, now I see how its being done !

The people writing the stories are professional writers but not particularly journalists or expert in the subjects they may be called on to write about. The results now make a little bit more sense.

I mostly quite enjoy reading these little stories but just occasionally I have to have a good laugh at the apparent lack of knowledge of the writers and their apparent willingness to take corporate "press" releases at face value without any form of investigation or verification. It might be interesting if, once in a while, they tried to get a more balanced view on a subject although not quite sure how that could be done easily.

Anyway Brian, thanks for taking time to explain how its done !

[G77]

i always thought it was a bot

[TDF]

Originally Posted by G77

i always thought it was a bot

Me too.

I've always wondered why forums bother with it, I thought it was just a vbulletin feature.

[brian]

It is a bot feature for vbulletin that allows excerpts of news to be pulled from other websites.

However, for the TW forums, the idea is to pull in stories we're publishing at the front end of the site in case they prove useful as discussion starters.

I think the news quality is improving, but it's still taking time to develop. Hopefully will be better, quicker.