Guardian.co.uk is calling on its readers to use its research tools to search through some 700,000 MP expenses documents to see if there are more instances where a claim needs investigation.

It is asking people to read through the documents and when they see a possible irregularity hit the ‘investigate this’ button and the Guardian will take a closer look.

There are so many documents to review that the Guardian’s crowdsourcing move makes sense – and what a great story to use it on.

Looking forward to seeing how this project develops! And to the future twists, turns and revelations in the expenses story.

If you want to help the Guardian with its research click here

I got the chance today to go on RTE One’s live election show Campaign Daily to talk about the election website with Bryan Dobson. Check it out on the RTE Player here (for people outside of Ireland try here) it’s around the 45 minute mark.

Don’t forget to check out RTE.ie’s election Twitter feed

RTÉ Elections 2009

In the last few weeks quite a bit of my time has been spent coordinating the website for the 5 June elections. It was launched this week and you can visit it here.

Check out the group blog  Campaign Daily – with great contributions this week from Mark Little (who had an excellent blog on RTÉ.ie for the US elections), Miriam O’Callaghan and Cian McCormack.

Visit us at Twitter @RTE_Elections and while you’re there  follow Prime Time’s new Twitter stream @RTE_PrimeTime as well.

There’s lots of great material on the main site including an excellent guide to PR-STV by UCD’s Prof Richard Sinnott (the system of voting used in Ireland), chapters from the just published and widely discussed All Politics is Local, lots of great audio and video highlights from RTÉ’s best news and current affairs programmes and features written by young journalists covering the European Parliament elections.

It’ll be a busy couple of weeks ahead as the website keeps on growing and the elections get closer but I’m looking forward to it particularly the count weekend!

Blathnaid

P.S By the way send us in your election photos!

Someone has put a bid of $13,000 for a two-three month unpaid internship with the Huffington Post!

Read more about it here and here

The Guardian has launched a new commercial venture, which will enable ‘partners’ to reuse guardian.co.uk content for free while carrying its advertising.

Guardian News & Media Director of Digital Content Emily Bell says the move will help to weave its content into the ‘fabric of the web’.

The Guardian’s Kevin Anderson writes:

A content application programming interface (API) will smooth the way for web developers to build applications and services using Guardian content, while a Data Store will contain datasets curated by Guardian editors and open for others to use.

More from the Guardian about Open Platform here.

What others are saying:

Wired says this is not a new move citing that it comes ‘on the heals of a similar move by the New York Times and seems to point toward a new kind of approach to online news — give away your content and send the advertising with it.’

Tom Watson calls it ‘revolutionary’ and ‘leap into the future’.

My initial thoughts:

It will further consolidate content.

Open Platform like the NYT’s Developer Network could push the wires into doing something similar.

The data store element of this initiative is very interesting and is worth keeping an eye on.

I have just returned from an European Commission trip to Brussels so this post is very Euro-focused. But with the elections in June and Lisbon II before October we’ll need all the resources available to us.

The European Journalism Centre’s newsroom aggregates news about the industry here. It’s clearly laid out and takes in most of the big hitters.

For journalists covering Europe and the elections later in the year eu4journalists has some good policy info. Not a great name for a website though and bear in mind that it is a website created for the European Commission. However it might be easier than dealing with Europa.eu. But if you must deal with Europa.eu the good folks at the European Journalism Centre have a search engine to tackle that behemoth.

Away from Europe Al’s Morning Meeting over at Poynter takes a look at audio slideshows and asks Boston.com’s (website of the Boston Globe) web editor David Beard perhaps the most pertinent question about this medium. (Thanks to Peter Sachs‘ gmail status for the heads up)

Why would somebody watch a slideshow when the world has “gone video?”

Beard: They watch both. … I think you have to take people to a different place with both. I love the way Brian Storm’s crew mixes and matches video and audio slideshows, too, so that the art of the still photograph is not sacrificed. If your question is why the seemingly Web 1.0 still slideshow, or gallery, still draws so many fans, it may be that it’s seen as less of an investment.

If I as a reader want to check out thumbnails and get to the photo I want, I can do that. If I want to stop, or to linger, I can go as fast or as slow as I want. If I just want to see the photos of the US Airways crash on the Hudson River to get my understanding in 30 seconds, or catch the best editorial cartoons of the week, I can do that, too.

I like audio slideshows, but recently I have noticed some which seemed to be done just for the sake of it. When done well like the Washington Post’s Exploring Antarctica it’s storytelling at its best.

The broadcaster has announced it is to cut some 1,000 jobs, 40% of its regional staff will be let go in the move.

Read about the fallout, which followed the announcement here

According to paidContent.org Foreign Policy magazine, which comes out every two months and its website have been bought by the Washington Post Company

Read more about the acquisition here

I am in Washington DC at the moment en route from Dublin to Denver. I have done a little work here, but mostly preparation for the week ahead in Denver.

Keep an eye out for coverage from the Democratic and Republican Party conventions from Monday on RTE.ie/news.

Looking forward to a challenging week!

From the Newspaper Society

The INM newspaper launched its redesigned website a month ago and it has seen a 29% jump week on week in page impressions – pretty impressive!

It’s a nice site, a huge improvement on the old one and much more user friendly. It does follow the INM formula pretty much to the letter though.