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

Dave Lee on the NUJ

Dave Lee, Co-Editor of the BBC Internet blog, has an interesting and frustrated post on his personal blog as to why he won't be renewing his membership of the NUJ. An extract:

'The NUJ is a cowardly union, hiding away in offices in which they wish were still furnished with typewriters and a smoking room. Their magazine, ‘Journalist’, is symbolic of their attitude to the changing media world. Only very recently has it become available online. As a downloadable PDF, that is. A pain to download, a pain to read — and completely anti-Google. Journalists looking for its words of ‘wisdom’ wouldn’t find them too easily.'

I've posted about the political aspects of the NUJ, and specficially General Secretary Jeremy Dear before. I could buy student membership for £25, which could last until the end of my course. I'm just not sure that it's worth it. In fairness to The Journalist, they have linked to the post from their website. Lee concludes:

'Right now, the only noise I hear from the NUJ is complaining.

“Save the journalists!” they’ll scream.

“But how we will survive? We can’t afford them,” say the newspapers.

“Well, er… we don’t know. Just SAVE THE JOURNALISTS, ok?”

Useless.'

Suspension of Russell Brand, Johnthan Ross at the BBC: A defence of the presenters

I'm cautious about writing this post but I feel that government and opposition comments on the Johnathan Ross/Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs debacle should not go unanalysed or unchallenged.

I'm sure you are aware of the background to the issue but there is some explanation here if not.

What Ross and Brand said to Sach's answerphone was clearly rude, crude, upsetting to him and a breach of trust between Brand and Sach's granddaughter. However, I'm not sure it warrants the PM and the leader of the opposition getting involved.

The programme was broadcast after the watershed, with a warning about offensive language beforehand. It's Russell Brand and Johnathan Ross not Gardeners World. Neither presenter could be classed as the most clean-cut of BBC presenters but they are largely popular and their shows are well received.

Now the BBC is obviously publicly funded, so there is no problem with politicians feeling they have a right to comment on it's programming, and for that matter they do. My problem is the nature of their comments.

Jeremy Hunt, Conservative spokesman for Culture, Media and Sport is due to say later on in a speech at the LSE that it is:

"wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour"

Who gets to decide what is 'negative social behaviour'? I'd concur that the invasion of someones privacy probably falls under this category but I'm not sure it's the responsibility of the BBC to draw those lines. The BBC should be representative of the population that funds it and the country is broadcasts to, while not declaring certain actions 'negative social behaviour.'

And just as I'm writing this I've received a news alert stating that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have been suspended by the BBC.

Gordon Brown, who has criticised the actions of the pair as 'inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour', is according to the BBC expected to face questions about the matter at PMQs. Because that's what is important to the country apparently. I'll be watching it to see what happens.

Tips for Changing Newsrooms and reader demand

Paul Bradshaw at the Online Journalism Blog has some tips for changing newsrooms:

1. Set up your systems so that journalists get emails when someone comments on their stories. Nothing kills a conversation like someone who doesn’t listen.

2. Make an effort to meet social media users in your community/beat in person at least once a month (it helps if you set up a meeting or join one that exists). Failing that, have a video conversation. Both strengthen community more than just text. Jo Geary does this brilliantly in Birmingham.

3. Make 30 minutes every week to think about how you do your job, identify problems or frustrations, and blog about it, inviting suggestions on how you can do it better, or asking if others can help.

4. Try a new toy every fortnight - online services like Seesmic, Twitter, blogging, Ning, social bookmarking, Dipity, Yahoo Pipes, Shozu; hardware like the Zoom H2, Flip camcorder, and N95. IF you don’t have any ideas check out TechCrunch.

5. Regularly distribute information internally to all reporters and editors about what is happening on the website - popular stories, most commented on, bookmarked, old stories getting new interest, most visited on mobile, what times most accessed, where traffic is coming from, what search terms are most popular, what stories are getting a ‘long tail’ of small but consistent traffic.

6.If the online side of things seems like ‘extra work’ find out ways to make it less onerous and more automatic - explore Firefox extensions, bookmarking buttons, shortcuts; using ‘downtime’ to update via text or mobile web; and how to syndicate an RSS feed from one place to another (e.g. Twitter’s feed or Delicious feed to your blog).

Most of this seems like good advice to me. Newsrooms can't see the web as simply another platform on which to publish the same material from their traditional medium, but have to explore how they can be more interactive, make use of audio/video and enable the publication of user-generated content.

I think tip number five about keeping reporters updated on Internet traffic would be especially useful, as long as it doesn't lead to an over-emphasis on certain stories. This leads us to an interesting question: should websites be driven in their content and their focus on what stories and news items are most popular? After all, BBC News would have whole sub-sections on the Sudanese man and the goat (see Adam Curtis' blog post on it here) and the python's fight with the alligator in the Florida everglades if this were the case.

This is connected to the age-old adage of the paper and the readership - which responds to which - but online content allows us to keep trace of popular or unpopular stories via their Internet traffic. We can't easily tell which stories people read most avidly, and which topics they will return to issue after issue, in a newspaper. Online we can, and so their must be a temptation to obsessively analyse the most popular stories and change news values and focus accordingly.

I'd be tempted to say that news sites should avoid such a practice, as certain news items may still be of great importance and relevance, but read by fewer people. But who decides what is of 'great importance and relevance', if not the readers? Indeed, why should websites, like all media, not be driven by readership in some respects?

Photos on BBC Scotland

Two photos from my recent trip to Scotland are on the BBC Scotland website, in the section 'Scotland Outdoors' Galleries.
The first one is of my Dad on a beach in South Harris:


The second one featured was taken from Hirta, the largest island on St. Kilda from it's highest point, Conachair:
I thought I'd also show some of the other pictures taken on that trip. I wrote about the idea of 'remoteness' after having returned in a previous post.

Taken at Arrochar, near Loch Lomond:


And a photo from 'the Village' on Hirta:


Enjoy!