Great advice Ben. As a Sheffield University graduate I agree that the relationship has worked in the city, certainly better than in Leeds where neighbourhoods have become student ghettos (although I understand that things are changing for the better in Leeds).

I think that students have potential to put something back into the community whatever they are studying and creating a quality, sustainable hyperlocal blog is a excellent way of doing this. And as you say the odd one could even rival mainstream media. Maybe this is something that university enterprise hubs should be supporting?

I went from being one of those student journalists in the mid 1990s to working on the Sheffield Star and reporting on problems between students and their local neighbours.

On the whole, though, it’s a relationship that has worked well in Sheffield, demonstrated in part by the fact that the city has a high retention rate of students after they graduate.

Any would-be journalist needs to understand and make sense of the world around them and build relationships with people. What better place to start to learn this than the area where you live or study?

And if some of those hyperlocal blogs you refer to turned into businesses that gave the city media a run for its money on its own patch, you could end up with a more thriving local news scene than the one you have in many English cities at the moment. Now that really would be worth supporting and I am sure many Sheffielders who are only-too-weary of the quality of local news they get from established media organisations would be thankful for that too.

“So if you have any stories, regardless of how “un-newsworthy” you think they may be, share them on here!”

… I fear I may have given a similar response. It’s not incumbent on the users to tell the journalist what’s happening – the journalists should be listening and watching. As “Strix” rightly says: “There’s actually no need to log in here and ask US to do the work for you. If you’d bothered to read your way down the ‘sheffield discussions’ list you’d have most likely found everything you need”.

That user has been on that site for eight years and someone joins up in a day and wants to get involved. The response is one of “who the hell are you anyway?” It’s like walking up to a group of people in a pub and stopping the conversation.

The big picture is perhaps that this was a useful exercise for the students, however, so perhaps it’s a worthwhile experience.

At present we operate a regional site, but are working on plans to drill it down to hyperlocal level. But for me the key is not to tie it to a module. Instead it needs to be a project that has the hyperlocal value at heart – it shouldn’t be done by students because they have to, but because they want to.

The other thing I’m keen to ensure when we do push hyperlocals out is that they are for the benefit of the community rather than as an education tool. As a hyperlocal publisher myself, it’s one thing I’ve had to realise – to be a success you need to be part of the community rather than preaching to it.

Inspired by your blog post, I put out some more views here: http://thejournalismnotepad.co.uk/2012/02/20/university-hyperlocal-sites-need-to-be-more-than-just-educational-tools/

With Blog Preston we could probably improve our relationship with the local university further, we have an informal one with them at the moment – rather than the type of one that Richard mentioned he has with Huddersfield in an earlier comment.

I think the key is just to stick around when it comes to hyperlocal. So many sites start up and say ‘NEWS FOR YOUR AREA’ but it’s tumbleweed after a week or so. Part of that is to ensure you keep an open mind when it comes to content and contributors, and the longer you stick around for the easier it becomes to create content.

I wrote a post last Autumn about handing over Blog Preston to the likes of Jo and Andy and what that taught me: http://www.edwalker.net/blog/2011/10/05/handing-over-a-hyperlocal-site/

For students though, it’s a good experience to be told to “do one”, as you’ll often find a similar reaction when working for local/regional/national media!