MULTIMEDIA MEETS RADIO

Top news stories for 2007

What have been the biggest news stories so far this year in broadcast, print and online media? The question got an answer at News Xchange, when Canada’s Influence Communication presented a hit parade based on 632 million news items from 120 countries.

IC president Jean-Francois Dumas told the conference that researchers had calculated “media prominence scores” by aggregating the number of minutes devoted to each story between January and mid-September.

In reverse order, the top 15 news stories were:

15. Madonna's adoption problems
14. Mattel recalling toys
13. Paris Hilton going to jail
12. Madeleine McCann
11. Launch of iPhone
10. Hanging of Saddam Hussein
9. G8 summit
8. Elections in France
7. Harry Potter
6. Virginia Tech shootings
5. Tony Blair
4. War in Afghanistan
3. Iran nuclear crisis
2. Campaigns of US presidential hopefuls
1. War in Iraq

And the most talked about person in 2007, excluding politicians, was … Paris Hilton.

No surprises then - just confirmation that we are a shallow, superficial lot - and no reason not to believe the findings are accurate. You didn't really expect to see Darfur in the list, did you?

I believe, though, that the results may have been skewered by the tabloid press and a dumbing down of TV news. Surely, radio still flys the flag for public service journalism?

Anyhow, I would really like to see a breakdown of the results for each media and possibly by region too. Apparently, the data is available and I shall be writing to Mr. Dumas to see if I can get hold of it.

Why Wikinews will never match BBC News Online

I have just received an email challenging me to justify my comment in an earlier post that "Wikinews will never be a substitute for BBC News Online." I thought I had already dealt with that.

Anyhow, I'll answer the question by telling you about a book I never read.

A few years ago, somebody gave me a copy of 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' by Eric Raymond. Unfortunately, I had only managed to read a few pages before I lost the book, somewhere in China.

From what I remember, the book was based on the seemingly utopistic premise that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." In other words, if the public has access to the source code, then software bugs will be detected and fixed more quickly.

This is the bazaar of the book's title - a then revolutionary approach to software development known as open source. Raymond contrasts this to the cathedral model, which relies on highly organised teams of specialised experts.

While I was losing my copy, a certain Jimmy Wales not only finished the book, but was inspired to try applying the bazaar model to content creation. The result was Wikipedia.

The ironic thing is that nowadays Raymond is one of Wikipedia's biggest critics. Among other things, he claims the entry on him is strewn with errors.

"Disaster," he fumes, "is not too strong a word" for the people's encyclopaedia. I'm told that what really got Raymond's goat was that other citizen editors had had the effrontery to re-write his Wikipedia entries on science fiction.

But questions of ego aside, he makes a very important point: Raymond believes that the open-source model only suits software development because it is immediately obvious if something doesn't work. The same objectivity, he says, cannot be applied to writing or editing entries for an encyclopaedia.

Fans of Wikipedia, myself included, would counter this with the observation that over time the collective wisdom (and eyeballs) of thousands of editors will remove any inaccuracies or bias. The Wikipedia community is not as anarchic as many suppose: a significant number of pages on the site are actually dedicated to discussing controversial entries and resolving possible disputes.

The problem is that all this takes time, which clearly an up-to-the-minute site like Wikinews does not have. The collective wisdom of millions of users may be a powerful tool, but it cannot deal with breaking news.

The problem with Wikinews is that it tries to mimic MSM without the aid of professional journalists. South Korea's OhMyNews may have 30,000 citizen reporters, but the whole thing is held together by a small number of professional editors.

"Citizen journalism won't replace the professionals, at least I hope not," says 'We the Media' author Dan Gillmor. "We need the best of what the pros do."

Gillmor envisages an ecosystem where all kinds of journalism coexist. In his vision, professionals would provide citizen reporters with tools and training, while in turn enriching their own output with user-generated content.

This is an area where the BBC is setting the pace. At News Xchange, Pete Clifton talked about a user-generated content hub that employs six people (now seven) to sort through the 10,000 emails and texts the BBC receives every day, together with 300 images in a typical week.

But the user-generated content hub is only part of the picture. Vicky Taylor runs a team of 22 people directly involved in interactivity - four of them, for example, work on a special TV and radio programme called Have Your Say.

Last week, the BBC College of Journalism launched a three-hour workshop on user-generated content. It covered topics such as the authentication of material, taste and decency, health and safety, as well as legal matters, including copyright, defamation, contempt and privacy.

Advice on all these areas is also set out in a new guide to editorial policy.

The BBC and other PSBs are already exploring Gillmor's ecosystem and reaping some of the benefits of UGC. Wikinews is living in a wolrld of its own.

User-generated authenticity

On its final day, the News Xchange conference revisited the tedious "journalists vs. bloggers" debate as ITN's editor-in-chief, David Mannion, launched a withering attack against Charles Leadbeater. One of the few things I learnt at business school was that there is always resistance to change, but still the vehemence of Mannion's attack caught me by surprise.

"I have never heard so much tosh in all my life," screamed Mannion after Leadbeater predicted that news editors would come to rely increasingly on user-generated content (UGC). Why so much anger, given that the former FT reporter was hardly saying anything new?

"There is still an awful lot of material out there that is not user-generated content. And may I remind Mr. Leadbeater that we stood here yesterday, in front of a roll call of professional journalists and cameramen who had died because of authenticity and because they were on the spot."

Leadbeater had argued that broadcasters were at the beginning of "a fundamental shift in the economics and culture of news production." This was because previously high barriers to entry and high capital costs were falling rapidly.

Leadbeater had claimed that Wikipedia's account of the July 7 bombings was "almost as good as the BBC", but had been achieved with no employees.

It was a tad provocative, perhaps, but hardly a declaration of war against MSM.

Leadbeater was not, of course, suggesting the BBC, or ITN for that matter, should sack all their journalists. UGC is not about pulling content from users - it is a process involving two-way traffic, which is why Wikinews will never be a substitute for BBC News Online.

A UGC strategy means empowering audiences to tell their own stories because eyewitness accounts are more powerful than ripping and reading Reuters news ticker. Dare I say it, they add authenticity.

Forget Wikipedia, in this respect the BBC's coverage of the July 7 bomb attacks was a watershed. It was the beginning of what the BBC's Global News chief, Richard Sambrook, called "a long journey that will take us to a very new place."

Journalists provided analysis, context and background, while eyewitness enriched the BBC's output with text, photos and video sequences. One survivor - Rachel from North London - began an online diary for the BBC, which later turned into a blog.

The BBC now employs six people to check the content that flows in every day on a variety of more or less newsworthy topics.

The head of BBC News Interactive, Pete Clifton, told News Xchange that 95 per cent of submissions were worth looking at, if not always worth using. "There's always a small minority that want to put one over on us: you become very expert in looking at these things."

The BBC's Mary Hockaday was more succinct: "A lot of that stuff is rubbish, but some of it isn't."

The important thing is that broadcasters like the BBC are beginning to think about audiences as partners, rather than mere users. They have become an essential part of the newsgathering operation.

Something that did not come up during the session was the idea that the bloke on the Clapham omnibus may be an expert in his field, who could provide an informed source. Jay Rosen calls it "users know more than we do" journalism.

It was not discussed because old-think Old Media delegates were too busy worrying about whether UGC was a threat to their editorial standards. The simple answer is no because one of the first things you learn in journalism is to check your source - whether it's Reuters, AFP or a "citizen journalist".

Should broadcasters give terrorists the sarin gas of publicity?

It is not often that Richard Quest is lost for words, but it happened for a few brief seconds at the News Xchange conference, in Istanbul. A man and a woman rushed onto the podium and started to unfurl a ridiculously large banner, before they were ushered away by security men.

It later transpired that the young protestors were members of the Association for Inmates' Families' Solidarity (TAYAD), a group that campaigns for better conditions in Turkish prisons. Not that I'm an expert on this sort of thing, but they would have done better to keep their message shorter, to give us time to read it before the gorillas stepped in.

Anyhow, we were later told they had been taken to a police station and detained only briefly for questioning.

The episode did not seem to affect Quest unduly and the presenter was soon shouting and flapping his way through a session on reporting terrorism, as only he knows how. The debate centred around the issue of whether the media is playing into the hands of militant groups by broadcasting their statements.

The question gained renewed prominence last month, when some politicians joined the tabloid press in accusing the BBC of offering "support and succour to the enemy" by interviewing a leader of the Afghan Taleban.

At News Xchange, there was a lot of talk about "the oxygen of publicity". But DMA Media's Stephen Claypole argued it was more like "the sarin gas of publicity" because video appearances by militant groups gave rise to public outrage and revulsion.

Most delegates agreed that interviewing those behind terrorist attacks could even serve a useful purpose. Peter Bergen's 1997 interview with Osama Bin Laden is said to have helped the US to understand its enemy.

The former CNN Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan, claimed he would pass up the opportunity to interview an al-Qaeda leader because he would feel compelled "to bring the killers of Daniel Pearl to trial". Jordan is now the CEO of something called Praedict/IraqSafetyNet, a "war zone-focused media company providing customized, up-to-the-minute news, intelligence, and safety tips to those in harm's way."

But even if broadcasters choose to avoid interviewing militants, they still have the problem of what to call them. The session's exuberant host neatly summarised the dilemma as "the hoary old chestnut of whether one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

The BBC World Service's Phil Harding suggested the word "terrorist" was best avoided, as it signalled taking sides and abandoning neutrality. He said that using it on-air automatically excluded the opinions of many listeners and viewers, whilst playing into the hands of those who wanted the corporation to take sides.

One broadcaster that is frequently accused of taking sides is Al-Jazeera. London bureau chief Yosri Fouda, was angry that his 2002 interview with the masterminds of the September 11 attacks had provoked outrage in the West.

"When Peter Bergen interviewed Osama Bin Laden, in 1997, he was a hero. When I interviewed the 9/11 masterminds, I was seen, as an Arab journalist, as a suspect."

Fouda criticized governments for their attitude toward the channel.

"I cannot accept the argument that Al-Jazeera gives publicity to these groups," he said. "The real war is against misinformation from governments, misinformation that leads to self censorship."

News Xchange: a gem of a conference

Legend has it that one day, in Istanbul, a poor man was scavenging a rubbish dump for scraps of food, when he came across a large, pear-shaped crystal. Sensing that his luck was turning, the beggar promptly sold the brightly coloured stone for three wooden spoons.

It was perhaps the worst deal in history. The 84-carat Spoonmaker's Diamond now has pride of place in the city's Topkapi Palace, while no-one is quite sure what became of either the beggar or the wooden spoons.

I remembered the story as our taxi took us past the Topkapi Palace on the way to the Conrad Hotel, which is hosting the fifth annual News Xchange conference. Although locals may not recognise many of the "famous" broadcasters attending the conference, the tight security around the hotel should be enough to convince them that it is the real McCoy.

Inside the Conrad, I feel as though I have strayed onto the set of a celebrity reality show.

The conference room has been turned into a TV studio, complete with cameras, satellite connections and giant screens. Big name journalists present conference sessions for the benefit of their peers.

News directors, senior editors and star anchors from the UK and the US rub shoulders with their opposite numbers from around the world. The organizers say this year's event is the most successful yet, with 500 delegates from 55 countries, representing 115 media organisations.

There were whirling dervishes at the reception, but sadly no Turkish belly dancers to open News Xchange. Instead, delegates were treated to the exotically gyrating vowels of the BBC's Lyse Doucet, as she introduced Jan Egeland, a man who styles himself the "world's conscience".

The UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs accused the media of choosing stories "as if a lottery" and systematically denying their audiences access to vital and compelling news.

He complained that while worthy, the media's coverage of Darfur was in stark contrast to its lack of interest in the tragedies unfolding in Uganda, the Congo and Colombia. He urged broadcasters to act more rationally - to "become more predictable" - and to exploit raw video produced by the UN.

ITN's Mark Austin opened his session on embedded journalists by showing delegates his British military passport. "You sign this and sign away much of your freedom as a journalist," he joked, "but you benefit in many ways too."

He believed that the nature of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan meant that never before had embedding been so important. At the same time, he suggested, the relationship between the military and the media had become difficult and fraught.

He quipped that this was to some degree inevitable since they had irreconcilable aims: the military wanted secrecy and the press wanted publicity.

The CBS chief foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, pooh-poohed the suggestion that as an embedded reporter, with US troops, she was not free to "do my own thing". Speaking by satellite from Baghdad, Lara Logan said that military patrols had often allowed her to go in to streets and houses unaccompanied.

She claimed that she had learnt a great deal about how the military operated and suggested that other journalists could only benefit from finding out how the military worked.

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen stressed that embedded journalists needed to remember who they were and to stay focused on the job they were doing. He said that they should keep their distance and remain separate from the soldiers.

"Journalists have to be outsiders - once we feel like insiders we have crossed the line," said the BBC Middle East editor.

The danger of going native was illustrated by the story of embedded filmmaker Victor Franka, who had spent five weeks "eating, sleeping, pissing and shitting" with Dutch troops, in Afghanistan, when Taleban fighters ambushed his convoy. Franka grabbed a gun and and started firing back, justifying his action with the explanation that his camera battery had run out.

According to General Danny Rothschild, of the Israeli Defence Force, the Dutchman is not the only one taking sides. General Rothschild claimed that a survey of 500 Israelis had highlighted the problem of what he called "unbalanced news reporting".

He told delegates that two days earlier he had met the BBC chairman, Sir Michael Grade, and an audience of 200. Over lunch, the general had attacked the BBC's Middle East coverage as one sided.

General Rothschild alleged that although Sir Michael had been quick to defended the integrity of his reporters, the BBC boss had conceded that "some were ignorant".

General Sir Mike Jackson stressed the importance of freedom of the press, pointing out that soldiers were risking their lives to help extend such freedoms elsewhere.

The session was brought to a sobering close by the BBC head of global news, Richard Sambrook, who asked delegates to rise to their feet as a mark of respect for the 131 journalists and media staff killed over the past 12 months.

Conference turns spotlight on media's role in integration

It was an unhappy coincidence. As I read about the death of Oriana Fallaci, I received an e-mail telling me about an EBU-supported conference on the role of the media in promoting a dialogue between cultures.

You may remember that in the wake of the September 11 attacks on America, the Italian journalist published several articles and books warning against the dangers of allowing Muslims to follow their cultural practices in Christian Europe.

Of course, it is easy to dismiss Fallaci as a bigot, but her last books were bestsellers. Some commentators believe that book sales may have been fed by a perception, among a sizeable number of Europeans, that multiculturalism has failed.

Over the past year, several events have highlighted the cultural chasm between Muslims and Western communities in Europe. Fears about terrorism have stoked tensions and rogue broadcasters, like Poland's Radio Maryja, have fanned the flames.

The publication, in a Danish newspaper, of cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad saw Muslims venting their fury on the streets of Denmark and around the world. In France, Muslim youths, disaffected by the prospect of a life on the dole, set fire to cars and clashed with police.

Europe's public service broadcasters have a mission to build bridges between communities. One way of doing this is by making programmes that increase understanding and foster mutual tolerance.

European PSBs can provide many examples of successful formats, ranging from RAI's now defunct news magazine, "Non Solo Nero", to radio stations in Sweden that target different ethnic groups. One of the goals of the EBU conference is to encourage broadcasters to exchange ideas about formats and content.

Alongside this, participants will discuss best practices in human resource management, including recruitment and training. Most PSB's accept that to be relevant, their workforces should reflect the cultural diversity of the countries and cities in which they operate.

The conference hopes to draw the attention of European media to the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of immigration. It will stress the media's role in the process of integration.

There is an outstanding line-up of speakers, including German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, Italian journalist and MEP Lilli Gruber, controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and the Director General of WDR and EBU president, Fritz Pleitgen.

They will discuss the relationship between Europe and Islam in the context of Turkey's bid to join the union, as well as the wider impact on immigration of the EU enlargement process.

WDR will present a study analyzing the effect of Turkish and German TV programmes on the attitudes of young Turks towards German society.

"Migration and Integration - Europe's big challenge, which role do the media play?" is being organised by WDR, ZDF and France Télévisions. It takes place in the German city of Essen, on 23rd and 24th November.

Diversity in news organisations

The former BBC Director-General, Greg Dyke, famously described the corporation's management as "hideously white," but until now, no one has raised serious questions about the colour of correspondents' skin. The BBC's new diversity chief, Mary FitzPatrick, appears not only to have broken the ice on that count, but also to have cast doubt on the ability of some reporters to do their job.   

Ms. Fitzpatrick, who says her remarks were taken out of context, told The Observer newspaper that she was "tired" of the way in which correspondents report on Africa. 

"I would prefer to see somebody who understands that culture, understands what's going on and can say: 'look with me, because I am part of this.' It feels more authoritative and more involved." 

The BBC's award-winning reporter, Fergal Keane, has slammed the remarks attributed to Ms. FitzPatrick as "pretty absurd". He poured scorn on the suggestion that the colour of his skin made him less "culturally aware" when reporting on Africa. 

The campaign group Liberty even went as far as asking the UK's Commission for Racial Equality to intervene. A spokesperson expressed concern that Ms. Fitzpatrick's key role at the BBC might mean that the corporation's journalists were no longer treated fairly.    

This debate should interest all news organizations based in countries with sizeable ethnic minorities. To my knowledge, several European broadcasters are taking active steps to recruit ethnic minority reporters to reflect better the diversity of their countries.

But to my mind the controversy surrounding Ms. FitzPatrick's alleged remarks takes the debate one step further. 

Let's forget about the nonsensical aspects of the argument: a black reporter born and bred in the UK is unlikely to know more about Africa than a white journalist brought up there; you can be an expert on the Mahgreb without knowing anything about the cultures and traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa, and so on. 

Ms. FitzPatrick assured irate BBC staff that what she had meant to say was that "a deep understanding of the cultural background and issues surrounding a story is essential".   

I think she is right. But the real problem is not so much skin colour as the fact that large organizations, like the BBC, sometimes do daft things like sending Chinese-speaking correspondents to cover eastern-Europe, or Spanish-speaking reporters to Asia. 

But if you take the ethnicity argument to its logical conclusion, it would imply that only an Italian journalist, for example, can understand Italy, or that you need to be Chinese to provide a truly authoritative voice on China.   

It is not just that this is all highly debateable, there is also a more sinister side that sends shivers down my spine. Perhaps I'm being paranoid or I've had one too many beers, but in the 1930s, Nazi historians used to argue that only the 'Volk' were qualified to write about the 'Volk'.

(This post originally appeared in Media Helping Media)

Coup for BBC news gathering

Siddhartha, in the novel of that name by Hermann Hesse, says that when you are working towards a goal, you often miss things that are right under your nose. I was reminded of this recently when I heard about the latest triumph for the BBC's news gathering team.

BBC News 24 managed to broadcast actuality from an Al-Qaeda statement a little over 10 minutes after it went out on Al-Jazeera and some 20 minutes before any of the agencies got hold of it. The coup followed the installation of a new digital system linking BBC Monitoring directly with TV Centre in London.

Direct access to Monitoring's main server means that news centre journalists now can view any one of dozens of TV stations worldwide picked up by state-of-the-art satellite dishes. A ‘rewind’ facility even allows staff to retrieve images after the initial broadcast.

But it is not just a question of instant access. A team of expert linguists is on hand at Monitoring to provide translations within minutes, along with analysis and contextual information.

What about copyright, I hear you ask? Picture desk staff at TV Centre will give immediate advice on any restrictions applying to channels accessed at Monitoring.

The launch of the new system coincided with a visit by Richard Sambrook, BBC Director of Global News and EBU Vice-President, to Monitoring's offices at Caversham, near Reading.

Contacts in Caversham described the visit as a huge morale booster. Monitors sometimes feel neglected and forgotten - Caversham is around 50 kilometres west of London - but were impressed that Richard Sambrook found time to meet them and answer questions about the future.

I was privileged to spend a short stint at Caversham some years ago and am delighted that the BBC is making the most of Monitoring's expertise and resources. It gives the BBC a huge competitive advantage over the likes of CNN.

It is not possible under the terms of our current agreement, but perhaps in the future some of the audio being piped to BBC News could find its way into the EBU's Euroradio News system.

Pocket phone gives reporters more time out in the field

A little over six years ago I went to Hannover (Hanover) to report from the World Expo - it was my last assignment. I arrived with a laptop computer, mobile phone and an oversized Marantz recorder.

I left with a bad back.

Not only was my equipment too much and too heavy, but also I still needed access to an ISDN line to file my reports. Of course, there was a lot of editing left over for when I got back to our offices.

But I'm happy to say that a pocket computer phone and some new software could soon change all that for the current crop of reporters.

The BBC has teamed up with the Maastricht-based Technica del Arte (sic) to transform an O2 XDA IIs pocket phone into a professional recording device. It will enable reporters to spend more time out in the field and less time in the office, or on the physio's couch.

The phone itself looks like a brick and feels like a paperweight, but I'm told that when you see what it can do, you soon stop caring what it looks like. The phone boasts a very high quality internal microphone, ample choice of communication options and a built-in camera.

Radio and web journalists at BBC Local Radio are already using the equipment to send high quality sound, pictures and even video down mobile phone lines and from wi-fi spots.

Andy Roche, Community Editor BBC Lincolnshire, is ecstatic about the equipment:

“The introduction of this impressive technology will have a dramatic effect on the way our journalists work, bringing new opportunities to get more high quality audio material on the air. It is easy to use when on the move, and its built-in publishing feature makes the whole process of recording and sending audio very easy for a non-technical reporter. While it is possible to buy very cheap recording software, it was well worth paying the extra costs for a product which was specifically designed for this kind of use. It will also mean a significant reduction in equipment costs.”

The technology has been shortlisted for an international innovation award, to be judged at the IBC, in September.

Them, us and Doris Day

BBC Newsroom Editor Tim Bailey said something to me the other day that encapsulated, in a few words, several years of more or less heated debate across much of the blogosphere. "It might be just me," said Tim, "but I get the impression that there is a danger of two rather fundamentalist camps being established - those who believe this represents the greatest breakthrough in public access to popular media since Guttenberg and those who don't."

Tim is absolutely right, except that those camps are already here and judging by what I have read on Technorati and BBC News Online, they were both in evidence at a BBC-sponsored shindig in London, earlier this month, called WeMedia. Very few people seemed to occupy the sensible (boring?) middle ground.

This may go some way towards explaining the discrepancy between the BBC's view of how the conference went and the talk on all kinds of blogs. But at this stage, I suppose I ought to stick my head above the parapet and say a few words about my own views.

Participatory media may, or may not be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they certainly afford a tremendous opportunity for creating a genuine conversation between broadcasters and their audiences. They can also provide a wealth of material - eye-witness accounts and insider knowledge - that any newsgatherer worth his salt would be daft to ignore.

Examples include the videos, pictures and podcasts spawned by Hurricane Katrina, Buncefield and the July 7 bombings, as well as award-winning blogs like Slugger O'Toole or Healing Iraq. Thanks to the blogosphere it is easier than ever before for correspondents to read themselves in and keep in touch with their patch.

Back to WeMedia: for the BBC, the event was a triumph that achieved all its goals. These included preparing BBC staff for Creative Futures, presenting the BBC to the outside world as a harbinger of change and learning about what other people and organizations were doing.

But the back-slapping was in stark contrast to the blogs that I read that accused moderators and speakers of sometimes belittling and often patronising the citizen bloggers in the audience. "Where's the we in WeMedia?" asked one frustrated participant.

Many of those who took part decided that this was defensive behaviour and that the MSM felt threatened, as Neha Viswanathan, of Global Voices, suggested:

It’s sad if journalism as a profession feels threatened by citizen journalism. But if it makes them clean up their act - Oh! Why not? It is unfortunate that people who support citizen journalism have to feel so defensive in a forum that was supposed to engage the two camps. I feel like they’ve divided them up even further.

BBC managers shrug their shoulders and ask me why I am surprised that bloggers are engaging in a spot of BBC/MSM bashing - after all, they say, blogging is all about whingeing and whining. And then they point to the ambitious aims of Creative Futures, of which user-generated content forms a central pillar. 

Somehow, I can't help thinking of all those Hollywood romantic comedies, where the future lovers always start off by despising one another. But for the time being, as Tim says, it's still two camps.