University of Sheffield Journalism Students London Trip

As part of our degree, the Print, Web and Political Communication students went down to London for two nights, taking in the Telegraph, Parliament and, in our case, the Press Association.

I hadn’t been to London in a while, something I made as clear as possible to excuse my fairly poor geographic knowledge of the capital.

We (not the tutors) stayed at the ‘generator’ hostel, just off Russell Square. Publicized as ‘London’s biggest party hostel’, we seemed to be in the slighter older range of clientele. It was adequate – sure I’ve stayed in nicer places but it worked out for us. The eurotrash-esque bar/club was a bit much though. One of my friends took willingly to the dancefloor, only to return swiftly once he had replied ‘they are all about ten’. Nasty.

The Telegraph

Anyway, to the purpose of the trip – the media industry. On the Tuesday, we visited the Telegraph Media group offices and heard from a variety of their staff. Ed Rousell, who spoke in the guest lecture series at the University of Sheffield, talked about the Telegraph’s move to digital. He pointed out that the real shift has been in management time and focus, rather than monetary resources.

He also spoke about Twitterfall, which now takes pride of place on one of the large newsroom screens at the Telegraph. Remarkable that it has been developed by two 19-year-olds from the University of York.

Guy Ruddle, Head of Visuals, made another important point. There is perhaps sometimes too much of a focus, and needless to say we have seen it with the MSM and Twitter, on the tools used to deliver the news. I have posted before about the reaction of the media to the use of Twitter during the Mumbai attacks. But the tools used become the story – and although they are notable, they should not be dominant. Ruddle said: ‘we are not in the business of delivering text, video, interactive audio. We are in the business of storytelling. The only reason is to help people understand these stories as best they can.’
This is spot on – and more on this, and the use of video, later.

Parliament

On Wednesday, we went along to Parliament after a fairly early start. Had the tour, which I’d been on before but was fascinating all the same – still ceases to amaze me just how small the chambers are.

PMQs took place, but unfortunately, we only had so many tickets so didn’t get to see it in person. We did, though, go across to Portcullis House to watch it.

Managed to miss spying any big names, apart from Vince Cable who I managed to see – twice.

However, the main reason for going along was a series of talks, in committee room 20 if you’re interested, from politicians and media professionals.

Politician wise, we had two of the biggest characters in Westminster (and, more to the point, beyond): Lembit Opik and Ann Widecombe.

Above all, what I noticed was how smooth they both were: even under free questioning, there was no hesitation, no stuttering. I would guess this comes from decades of practice. Lembit Opik was as animated as could be expected, declaring that the relationship between the politics and the press was ‘schizophrenic’, and that the media ‘are too disrespectful to politicians.’ Although he pointed out the importance of building trustful relationships with politicians. However, his interpretation did seem to treat the relationship as a little one-way. I’m pleased that he feels there is a lack of good, investigative reporting in the media.

Ann Widecombe, when asked why she uses the media as she has done, pointed out that she can get the attention of 4 million on one of her TV shows – whereas if she made a speech in Parliament, she would be lucky if 40 people outside the building knew.

We also heard from Ric Bailey, who is the BBC’s Chief Political Adviser, who spoke about the DEC appeal controversy, Michael Savage who graduated from the Print course in 2007 and now works for the Independent political lobby staff and finally Nick Jones, a former BBC Political Correspondent.

Nick Jones brought up an analysis I hadn’t thought of before, namely the effect of online video on traditional broadcasting video. The fact that sensationalist video online is so popular, and that (such as in the case of The Sun and Alfie), papers will use video to cover and enhance stories, makes Jones think that, eventually, traditional broadcasting will also be influenced. Considering the regulations on broadcasting, this could have serious implications on the industry – will traditional broadcasting be less restrained and impartial, in order to compete with video online?

When we bear in mind that broadcast news and online video are delivered in such similar forms – News 24 is online, there is video-only news on the BBC, the mainstream media papers deliver video on most of their main stories now…etc. But I don’t see why bias online video could not exist alongside neutral, detailed broadcast news, in the same way that there is a demand for BBC and More4 News alongside Sky and ITV. Video is just another form of delivering the news.

Finally, we went along to the Press Association on Thursday. It was a fairly short visit but interesting to hear about their nationwide operation.

So, that was London. Managed to fit in Hyde Park and Tate Britain as well.

Related posts:
Media Convergence Week at University of Sheffield
Next term of a postgraduate degree at the University of Sheffield