The initial consultation is now completed and we’re very grateful for your help. Log onto http://www.birminghamnewsroom.com/ to see our new online newsroom. 

The website was developed by Geoff Coleman and Dalbir Thind – with a number of contributions from Birmingham’s thriving blogging community. 

A number of you made useful suggestions during the development stage and, while some confirmed our thinking, others opened up new possibilities. 

The website was launched on 28^th June 2009 and has got off to a promising start. The audience is growing everyday and we’re still happy to take on board your suggestions.

The response to this consultation has been very encouraging so far and this week we’d like to look at a few specific areas of content for our soon to be launched newsroom.

We want to do more than simply post news releases online and plan to use more multimedia content in an effort to reach the widest possible audience.

One obvious area for discussion is our use of video.

Can you point us to examples where video news is used well or poorly? The examples could relate to local authorities or other organisations.

How do you think the use of video will enhance our coverage?

Please submit a comment below.

Here in Birmingham City Council’s press office we’re constantly striving for ways to improve our performance and to that end we intend to launch a virtual newsroom later this month.

Grand title but in truth we simply want to start using the wide range of new media tools out there to ensure council news reaches the widest possible audience.

We’ve obviously got ideas ourselves but would appreciate your input.

Please tell us what you’d like to see and even send us interesting links to illustrate your point.

We might not be able to deliver everything at once but this is an ongoing process and we want to deliver a service that makes council news more accessible for the people of Birmingham.

Please submit a comment below.