This is a copy of my weekly blog which I write for work and is published on the council's intranet.  The views I express in this log are my own, professional, views as the Head of Communications but do not necessarily reflect those of the authority itself.

Phew!  What a first week and a bit of the new year!  It’s been hectic.

I feel I need a holiday already.

You won’t be surprised that your colleagues in communications – like most of you – have been rather busy since we returned from the Christmas break.

Another ‘non-surprise’ will be that it is all down to the weather.

Snow is very pretty and as a former eye-in-the-sky helicopter traffic reporter I can tell you that it makes everywhere look very peaceful – but it is a real pain.

Mainly because lots of people can’t cope with the conditions and insist on blaming us for when – for instance – they drive too fast and then wonder why they skid out of control and hit the kerb.

All of a sudden their lack of driving ability becomes our fault.

The social media channels have been buzzing with people chattering about how ‘bad’ (and no, that’s not the word they’ve used) Leeds City Council is, because we haven’t gritted – among others - tiny cul-de-sacs in places in the far reaches of Leeds.

One ‘Twitterer’ even commented that ‘we don’t need an Ice Cube in Leeds this year because the council has turned the entire city into an ice rink.’

[I’ve deliberately missed out the expletives which punctuated that tweet.]

Umm, hold on mate: that’s unfair.  We’ve hardly arranged for billions of tonnes of snow to be dumped on the city, have it chilled and then compacted into ice.

The truth of the matter is that we’ve coped rather well actually.  Colleagues have made every possible effort to get into work and carry on as normal and where there have been problems we’ve adapted.

Refuse collectors and street cleaning staff have been diverted to snow and ice clearing duties, mobile libraries have been out on their rounds like they would on every other day and people from our highways team have been doing an amazing job working round the clock to keep the main roads open.

If you’re one of the people who’s been helping maintain ‘business as usual’, then thanks as you’ve given us some positive things to talk about.

The trouble is, the blogger who lives in that tiny cul-de-sac in Yeadon probably doesn’t care.  They are only interested in what is happening on their doorstep and aren’t seeing the bigger picture.

Like the one who sent me pictures of his road covered in snow.  In fact, it looked just like my street which also hadn’t been treated.

But this lack of ‘seeing the bigger picture’ worries me.

‘Uber local’ news is developing fast, mainly via social media channels and the internet and this year I think it’s going to make even more headway.  But here’s the issue as I see it.  At what point do we class these bloggers as bona-fide news gatherers/reporters and work with them like we do Dave Marsh or Christa Ackroyd?  And, when we do (as I think we inevitably will) what impact will they have on us and the demands they place on the council?

A lot I suspect.

My colleague Sara Hyman and I met with a reporter from the Guardian newspaper yesterday who has been hired for a new project involving blogging.

Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh have all been chosen as pilot areas for a web based news service, which will feature on the paper’s site.

The new reporter has been tasked with covering every possible council meeting, community group gathering and discussions that are taking place across the city.

His ‘office’ will be a laptop and a mobile phone and he’ll be writing stories from wherever he happens to be.  For instance, he’ll be filing ‘live’ reports from full council, executive board, scrutiny committees and anywhere else he can find a seat.  ‘Viewers/readers’ will be able to follow every word of the meeting and find out what elected members are doing and saying on their behalf.

The idea is to make local democracy more open and transparent.  Eventually, there are plans to include audio and video feeds as well on his blog.

I think this is a fantastic idea and hopefully it will prove that a lot of important stuff actually happens in this organisation - and that we want more residents in Leeds to be involved in the decision making process here.

Right now, they could be forgiven for thinking councillors just sit around drinking tea and eating Mexican chicken wraps, but let’s hope they don’t believe everything they read in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

On that note, the man from the Guardian let slip that our city was chosen for this new project because the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger ‘didn’t think much of the YEP’s coverage of the council’ and that Leeds is ‘politically interesting’.

I won’t comment on either point.