4iP Blog

So, finally, my first foray onto the 4iP blog with proof that we’ve been working away like a hive of busy busy little bees in the West Midlands since we launched in October. Now that I’m here on the blog there’s a strong to gale force chance that I’ll develop a habit because there’s rather a lot to talk about with the announcement of the first batch of 4iP projects, and the work that we’re doing with Screen WM.

Yesterday’s article in the Media Guardian details two very exciting projects that we’ve co-funded with Screen West Midlands and they both harness the strong and established social media community in the region.

First up is Talk About Local, in collaboration with UK Online Centres, which will provide a network of tools to enable communities to create powerful voices online through local websites.  Run by Will Perrin, it draws on his experience in his own locale with the Kings Cross Environment website.  There’s strong expertise in the West Midlands to help deliver this project.  Sites of this nature can and do affect change; whether it’s getting rid of pesky dog poop in the park, or holding those in power to account.  The advent of the internet didn’t create people who are strong advocates for change in their communities - those people always existed.  Talk About Local, through its partnership with the UK Online Centres, will give those people access to new tools and methods to make their case in the strongest possible way.

Which leads nicely on to the second project we’ve announced today. Help Me Investigate is currently in a closed testing stage but will be opening up to users later in June.  The brain child of Paul Bradshaw, the HMI team includes investigative journalist Heather Brooke, Nick Booth and Stef Lewandowski. For me, this project is a fantastic example of how the tools and communities that exist online can utilise and build upon the core elements of classic, effective and powerful investigative journalism. Collect, mobilise and uncover is the mantra and the site will provide ordinary people with the tools and platform to propose and participate in investigations.  It might be “why does my doctor have an 0845 number?” or “what happened to the £600k regeneration project for my housing estate?”.  It’s all about the facts and demonstrating that you uncover those by asking the right questions.

There’s been a lot of discussion, online and otherwise, around the question “What is 4iP”?  Talk About Local and Help Me Investigate are 4iP, in the same way that Dispatches and Cutting Edge are Channel 4.  Holding power to account, amplifying voices, harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, tools to make trouble - it’s all there in spades with these two projects. Just as it should be.