Ever since I first heard about the concept I’ve been intrigued by ‘20 per cent time’. It’s an initiative spawned by Google, who urge all their employees to take out 20 per cent of their day and spend time on something completely unrelated to their assigned jobs.

So, for example, a graphic designer at Google might spend his 20 per cent trying a spot of coding, as he may have had an idea for a new feature on an existing Google product.

The BBC also tried it out, this time giving 10 per cent (stingy buggers) to some of their stuff to try other bits and bobs on the site. Not quite the flexibility of the Google-time, but handy nonetheless — it has so far produced iPhone podcast pages.

All well and good, but how does that relate to journalism? Well let me recall a discussion I had with Jon Grubb, the editor of the Lincolnshire Echo. He very kindly commended me on my efforts with The Linc, and went on to say how it was great that we were out there finding stories. In some cases, we were even making stories.

Now that’s not to say that we were making them up — although there is a University press office that might argue that point — but instead we were bashing our noggins together and saying: “Look, we don’t have a good lead story. What can we do to find something out? Who do we not speak to enough? Who needs a voice?”

It shows: Our last issue was our most successful. Our lead story came as a result of our own research into drugs use on campus. A full-page feature was down to Dan Clough wondering if it’s a ball-ache to get around Lincoln on a wheelchair. It was. So we spoke to a load of people — and Danny even made a short documentary. Another full-page feature came as a result of Sadie Geoghagen speaking to as many single-parent students in Lincoln as she could. None of these stories would have ever come from a newswire. They were all too humble — and nice — to toot their own horns and come to us. Indeed, often the people with the most important stories don’t believe they are important enough. It is up to us to find them.

When I discussed this with Jon Grubb he agreed. But then I stressed that newspapers, particularly regionals, are not encouraging journalists to go out. There is always another press release to get typed up. He agreed. I brought up the example of Andrew Gilligan who is literally given free-reign at the Evening Standard. If he wants to follow up a story for three weeks… he bloody well can. And boy does it pay dividends: the Standard had a triumph with the Lee Jasper debacle (and arguably won the election for Boris), and Andrew won Journalist of the Year.

Gilligan is an exceptional example. I see Andrew’s skill as being rare — you could practice his methods all you want, but you won’t be as good. Just as if you practiced heading a ball for 15 hours a day, you still wouldn’t be as good as Alan Shearer.

What I’m saying is we need to give journalists a chance. If every reporter at every paper had 20 per cent to spend following their own nose on a story, heaven knows what gold we might find. We always hear the phrase ‘more bobbies on the beat’. How about ‘more journos on the beat’? Sounds great to me. If I was a regional reporter I’d want every parent at every school to know my face, and I’d want every copper to know my name, so that if anything happened that the public should know about, they wouldn’t be afraid to call as they’d know me as being an good, honest bloke.

20 percent is roughly one day a week. Is that too much to ask? If newspapers stick strictly to it, I believe the initial stresses of being a person down each day would be over-turned when the lead stories come rolling in by the bucketload.

Let’s see it happen!

I’m half tempted to keep this little cracker to myself, but this blog deserves a mention.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. I’ll need one soon. I’m officially a working journalist now. Although, technically, without a permanent job in the bag, I’m not exactly ‘working’ as such.

I’m hoping this guy/girl can help me find something. But, as I’ve linked all you guys to it, I expect first dibs on that Guardian editor job that might suddenly appear. Hmm.

If this blog looks a bit crazy, it’s because I’m trying out a few designs for some work I’m doing.

Burton Albion v Cambridge United, Blue Square Premier Playoff, semi-final, first leg. 7:45pm.

PLEASE GOD LET US WIN.

What a crazy couple of days.

Last night was the first ever Lincoln Media Awards. I’m ecstatic to say that my newspaper, The Linc, took home most of the awards. Of the ten on offer, our team grabbed these five: Headline of the Year, Best Reporting, Innovation Award, Sporting Chance and, to my utter delight, Editor of the Year. I promptly made the worst speech anyone in living memory has made, but I couldn’t hide my excitement that we all did so well.

This morning saw the arrival of Issue 10. The biggy. We’d saved our best story ’til last, and boy, it’s a cracker. But we knew, early on, that it would pose many risks. As the editor, I would be sticking my neck on the line in very dramatic fashion. I had to be prepared for all sorts of criticism. And that’s what I got.

Some more valid than others. I won’t go into them here — it would be unprofessional — but it is interesting to see the reaction of certain factions in a large institution when publicly criticised. Most interesting was threat of being sued by one particular area. Two reasons why this gave me an inward chuckle. Reason 1) there’s no reason to sue us. Reason 2) by suing ‘us’, they’d be suing the University. And by suing the University they’d be suing… themselves. Private Eye would enjoy that one, I’m sure.

Tomorrow will be another hard day. I’m yet to hear the reaction from ‘the top’ and, what is more, the story will be hitting the ‘real’ press when it runs in the Lincolnshire Echo. Early indications suggest that they’ll be hiding behind us when it comes to legality. I’m predicting a “The University of Lincoln student newspaper The Linc has claimed that drugs are being used on campus” rather than a more satisfying (and equally as honest) “There is crack cocaine being used on the University of Lincoln campus” line. But we’ll see.

You’d think, then, that the cocaine story would be our website’s biggest of the day, yes? No. If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, it’s that mention the words ‘BNP’ in an article and you’re destined to get comments galore. I couldn’t possibly say it on The Linc website, but I can happily say it here: they’re a bunch of racist idiots.

… hand ins are pretty much done. Normal blogging will resume shortly. Lincoln Media Awards tonight — expect photos!

I’m a big admirer of Paul Bradshaw. It’s heartening to know that we have tutors of his quality working in journalism education.

But I can’t see the point in this: Live-reviewing a book on Twitter.

Now I’m sure that Paul is merely experimenting with this technique. It’s always good to do that, but really, this is just Twitter overkil. On Twitter, I follow Paul Bradshaw’s tweets. Indeed, today, I’m ONLY following Paul Bradshaw’s tweets. Most of the others have been pushed off the page.

Twitter is the perfect tool to cover a developing story. Or to give momentary status updates of interest.

A book is a book. It’s not changing. Read it all and then tell me whether it’s any good or not.

You can’t provide live coverage of something that is, y’know, not live!

Social networking sites ‘must improve’

Web Hooligan Target Epilepsy Sufferers

Few more bits here:

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Father put daughter in microwave (urgggh!)

New York cabbie in ‘longest ever’ ride