Friday round-up: Learning from (others') experience

"Mood swings that would make a crystal meth addict blink in disbelief"

That was just one of the side-effects of setting up the Caledonian Mercury online, says Editor Stewart Kirkpatrick (pictured) on the blog allmediascotland.

18 hour days, seven days a week was what it took to launch what the CM team describe as "The Economist meets the Huffington Post drinking Irn Bru.”

But the hard work has seemingly paid off. He writes: "Since we launched in January, more than 700,000 people have visited the site, looking at more than 1.5million pages. We have more than 1600 fans on both Facebook and Twitter.

"We're cracking the advertising nut and while our committed team of writers have had to be patient at times, we have started to pay them a decent amount."

(Link via Jon Slattery)

More from the BBC

Content Management Systems can be the bane of an online journalist's life, as notes Adam Tinworth.

He has highlighted a blog by the BBC Online team, that he says makes for fascinating reading, on how they've developed their publishing system.

The new version, they write, underpins the new News site and has made substantial changes to systems and workflow, but it is still focused on the task of managing content which fits into a general journalistic pattern. It does not try to be all things to all people, and this in no doubt plays some part in its success.

A more in-depth blog post on all its bells and whistles is in the offing, but you can see a good overview of the more structured approach they've taken to making it all work - and work well.

And finally, the obvious...

Journalism graduates - like you didn't know finding a job was going to be difficult enough, Deb Wenger, on the Advancing the Story blog, has produced a quick checklist of what a modern graduate needs to have a hope in hell of getting their toe through the door.

It's no good just having a journalism degree - your qualification needs to cover all bases now. And whilst some of the tips only apply to US graduates, there are some other obvious ones - like work experience, basic web publication skills as well as an entrepreneurial attitude.

It may all sound like the ABC of modern journalism but it's still good to consider your own skills set and ask the question - do you measure up?

Should journalists' social media use be policed by the PCC?

The Press Complaints Commission's code of conduct is usually standard practice for most newspapers and the development of online content has already provided grey areas for lawyers but Leicester Mercury editor Keith Perch has questioned the role of the PCC, on his blog, when it comes to journalists' use of social media.

He is quick to explain that the scope would be for the professional use of such tools- such as linking to work done for a particular publication - treating it in the same way as a newspaper columnist and therefore personal use would not be included.

Quoting an email he sent to his journalists asking for their views, Perch writes: "As a columnist, the journalist gets far more freedom and is able to express an opinion. However, as a columnist their work is subject to my editing. I reserve the right to edit their posts.

"In practice, I never see their posts until after they have been published, but staff know that I am reviewing them and, therefore, I believe, they take this into consideration before publication."

Perch is inviting people to debate the issue on his blog. What do you think? Should Twitter feeds, official Facebook pages and the like come under the remit of the PCC?

(via Jon Slattery)