Goodbye, Lebewohl, Adiós, Afscheid, Pożegnanie, Hwyl fawr.

This is it, the blogging is over. Now is the time to reflect on all that we have learnt over the past four months, since starting this blog.

The question was: How can the quality and diversity of news and current affairs output be maintained in the digital age?

We’ve all been researching, reading articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts, conducting interviews, tweeting…in an attempt to come to some sort of conclusion. Its been tricky as, unfortunately, we are not mind readers (life would be so much easier if we were), but we can take a stab at ‘guessing’ how the quality and diversity will be maintained.

Speaking with Tim Hubbard, form BBC Cornwall, he assured us that the BBC have a very rigorous and strong filtration process in place to prevent the material being broadcasted from exaggerating or losing the standard of BBC quality. He does believe that more and more content from the public makes the news richer and more diverse. He goes on to say that perhaps at a less funded news organisation there could be a danger of compromising quality in order to be diverse.

I am someone who is not shy to admit that I am sceptical over the whole Twitter phenomenon. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy tweeting and communicating via Twitter, but to a certain extent I feel as though Twitter and ‘news gathering’ should be kept quite separate. Apart from in breaking news scenarios, when yes I agree it can be very useful.

I fear that ‘real’ journalism will deteriorate and we will all become a nation of bloggers and tweeters and eventually lose the ability to communicate and actually go out and get our own interviews – OK so thats probably taking it too far, but you get my point. The other side of Twitter which worries me greatly is only being able to communicate via 140 character. Yes, it teaches us to write concisely and to the point, but I have seen numerous occasions where many well respected journalists have compromised their quality of grammar and spelling to fit their message into the 140 characters.

Sorry to pick on Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4), but here are three genuine tweets by him:

Exceptionally hard to reas Libya tionight: Gaddafi killing his people..but not in the numbers one woudl expect from vast tank presence..

Shd have read:Gadaffi manifestly not in caracas, even if conceivanbly crackers..seems to accept he’s being beaten

Wakened up in Delhi,here for a three day conference:teeming culture shock never dims:1st time I ever came here I drove here frm UK in a bus!

I don’t even need to pick out the shocking spelling mistakes and shortening of words to fit what he wants to say into one tweet.

OK, so I know this is probably an extreme example and you are probably all reading through this blog post now trying to find mistakes (and I’m sure there are plenty), but my point is that many younger followers of Jon Snow (and thousands of other celebrities who tweet) will think it is OK and the norm to shorten words. Our English vocabulary and diction could all change drastically in the next decade, all because of Twitter. Scary isn’t it.

So, what I am trying to say is that the BBC needs to be very careful to maintain their top standards during this time by using their strong filtration system they have in place. I feel as though we are at a tipping point as far as the digital media goes. We could fall either way and very soon. I only hope that we fall to the side where it is possible to maintain quality as well as keeping a diverse and culturally rich output.

We have touched upon so many different elements of the question throughout this blog and I am not going to analyse all of them here. But I feel as though, us four, as a group have grasped the question and all have a clear understanding as to how public service broadcasting can maintain its quality and diversity throughout the digital age. By keeping this blog and preparing for the presentation we have become aware of different aspects which we, as future journalists, should bear in mind in order to keep our content diverse, yet rich with quality.

BBC news

Twitter

BBC Guidelines

Tim Hubbard interview

So, thats it from me. After all I’ve said about Twitter, I’m going to take this opportunity to promote my personal Twitter feed: @lucybickerton

Bye!

All good things come to an end… (even this blog)

As we near the end of this blogging experience its time to sum everything up, wrap it up in a parcel and put it to bed.

However before we do I want to leave you with a rather funny set of blooper reels. Yes, we have been discussing how quality and diversity of public service broadcasting will be maintained in the digital age. We expect news at our fingertips 24 hours a day, so this said, mistakes are bound to occur – and they do… take a look at these spectacular, laugh out loud BBC bloopers -

Radio 4: too old, too white, too southern?

Radio 4 has been criticised for not appealing sufficiently to young people, northerners and ‘those from ethnic and minority backgrounds.’

The BBC Trust has said that BBC Radio 4 needs to appeal to younger audiences.

In response to this, Victoria Coren recently wrote in The Observer saying, “Hurray! Radio 4 is to get younger, cooler, more regional, more ‘ethnic’ and totally different in way.”

This quote has angered a part of me which believes in not pandering to EVERYONES needs.

In my opinion, why should the BBC create radio stations where everybody is made ‘welcome’. So what if Radio 4 seems a little too middle-aged and middle-class for the average Radio 1 listener. That is precisely why the BBC have more than one station – to have something unique for everyone. This is the way it should stay.

In response to the BBC Trust report, Rod Little in The Sunday Times wrote: “Isn’t it about time Radio 1′s bangin’ DJs Fabio and Grooverider attempted to broaden their listenership and reach out to an older, whiter and more middle-class audience?”

Don’t get me wrong, I am your average Radio 1 listener and that is the exact reason why I feel as though I have the right to comment on the quote by Victoria Coren.

I think her view can be classified as ‘diversity’ gone mad. This is a true example where the BBC will be prepared to lower the quality of their output to please the masses.

Our presentation

How can the quality and diversity of the news output be maintained in the digital age?

Comments / Questions and Concerns

If you have any comments, questions or concerns please post them here!

How reporting on “Breaking News” has changed in the digital age.

At 08:50 on the morning of the 7th July 2005; 3 bombs exploded on the London Underground within 50 seconds of each other.

On that day the BBC 10 O’clock news led with two mobile phone video clips sent in by the public. The main picture on the BBC news online service was taken by a passer-by. The age of citizen journalism was established.

More than 300 emails containing an average of 3 images and about 30 video clips were sent to the yourpics@bbc.co.uk address. The iconic picture of the devastated bus at Tavistock Square was sent to the BBC within 45 minutes of the bombing and was used on the front pages of the Guardian and the Daily Mail the following day. Some mobile phone video footage was on air just 20 minutes after being received by rolling news channels.

As this tragedy happened within minutes, footage and experiences, of the immediate event, from passers-by and people involved in the attack were far more relevant, than that by reporters and told the story more accurately.

Immediate

For us the worried citizen sitting at home as this news story unravelled – we were able to keep fully up to date with rolling news being broadcasted on TV and on the online news pages.

However the BBC on that day were slow to respond. In the fear of reporting false accusations they were one of the last broadcasters to report that the incident was in fact a bomb. They were running with the story that there had been a power surge disruption within the city.

This slow response was because the BBC had only just published it’s new editorial guidelines, which stated, ”accuracy is more important than speed.”

Roger Mosey, head of BBC television news, said that the BBC would only “put on screen what we know is right – reports from our own correspondents, the official emergency service figures and information from members of the public that we’ve checked out”.

However Nick Pollard, head of Sky news, said that viewers have come to expect a more complete picture of what is going throughout the day when breaking news occurs. He says: ”We take very seriously our reputation as the place to turn to when there’s big breaking news. It’s what we’re there for. We tell viewers what we can see, what we know and what we don’t know.”

Number crunching

As many scrambled to find out the latest information, the BBC, Sky News and the Guardian websites reported a large increase in traffic. News websites accounted for 5.6% of all online traffic on 7/7/2005, up nearly 50% on the previous day.

As more and more are turning to the internet for their news fix…it becomes increasingly important that the sources are telling us everything we need to know about the event. In my opinion the BBC were too cautious on that day. Sure, the BBC are a source of trust and reliability  - but when news is breaking within seconds, we too want to be kept informed at the same speed.

The BBC have now admitted that they have rewritten the policy and guidelines since the 7/7 attack.

Head of Sky’s news service, John Ryley, has said:  ”News does not usually break cleanly. Big stories emerge in dribs and drabs, bits of information from many sources. Often conflicting and confusing … when a big story breaks we report new information, clearly attributed to its source, even if things turn out differently. It was precisely that policy that the BBC decided to adopt after the London bombings.”

We are all journalists – the rise of online media.

“What is news?” To many this may seem an easy question to answer and it is. News is what is new; it’s what’s happening; it’s the here and the now. Look it up in a dictionary and you’ll get this: “A report of recent events or previously unknown information.”

However, we live in a world where news is being created every second of every day. Newspapers, radios and TVs are already saturated with news and are simply unable to report on every detail occurring around the world.

Considering our brains naturally filter out information it regards as being un-important , it is unnecessary for us to have access to every news story – or at least this was what we all thought.

In the summer of 1991 the world, as we knew it, changed forever.

Enquire within upon everything.

The World Wide Web was born. Inspired by the book ‘Enquire within upon everything’ the inventor Tim Berners-Lee opened up a whole new world, to us the consumer.

The greed for news

Since 1991, news has become accessible to the masses. With the click of a mouse we are able to know and find out almost anything we wish. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year we are now able to read, learn, discover and explore what is happening in the world we live in.

It didn’t stop there

With the sudden influx of social media websites, news is no longer a one-way street. The term ‘citizen journalist’ was formed to describe us everyday people, going about our everyday lives witnessing first-hand everyday news.

Finally, we have all been given a platform in which we can export our findings into the world.

For example when the US Airways flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson river in 2009 this photo, taken on a mobile phone, http://twitpic.com/135xa circulated around the world within hours via the social network Twitter.

What next?

The BBC news website is the second most popular website in the UK (coming second to YouTube) and with 35-40 million unique visitors a month it is one of the top 5 news sites in the world.

With the speed in which news is required to be accessed these days, the output quality and accuracy has been brought into question. In my next blog post I will be looking at the challenges online media is facing.

Reshaping BBC online

How the BBC keep up quality and identity on their online presence. http://bbc.in/e0NTuw

What is diversity?

Over the years Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) has become more open and accessible to the masses, therefore needing to reflect the society they serve with the output they provide. The word ‘diversity’ has become a word used in the forefront of this mission.

In an attempt to answer the defining question of this blog: ‘How can the quality and diversity of news and current affairs output be maintained in the digital age?’ we have decided it is important to analyse the meaning of diversity and how it is implemented within PSB.

Pondering over how to sum up the question, ‘What is diversity?’ I decided to do what every trainee journalist is taught not to do – I typed it into Google.

The result:

Number one on Google taught me that Diversity is in fact an English street dance troupe, made famous for winning Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 and for beating Susan Boyle to the top spot.

I discovered that according to Ron Burgundy in the film Anchorman, when asked: “What in the hell is diversity?” his reply was, “It is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the civil war era.”

And finally, the Oxford English dictionary describes it as, ‘The state of being diverse.’ (The definition of the word diverse: ‘Showing a great deal of variety; very different.’)

From these three results, I will presume that Public Service Broadcasters, such as the BBC, have in fact been applying the dictionary’s definition of diversity and not Ron Burgundy’s to their everyday schedule. So, I too will summarise diversity in that way.

‘In summary’

Society can be diverse in terms of colour, race, religion, ethnic origins, gender, marital/civil partnership status, sexuality, disability and age. To create diversity PSB must be aware of each of these factors and reflect their service in such a way, so there is something for everyone.

‘BBC and diversity’

With an ever-growing multi-cultural society, the BBC has had to embrace diversity. Greg Dyke, former Director General of the BBC once quoted: “Diversity is an issue no broadcaster – public or commercial – can afford to ignore.”

He continues to say: “In Britain everyone is obliged to pay for the BBC and it is my view that that puts an obligation upon us to make sure everyone gets something back. To achieve that we have to first understand our audiences, recognise their diversity and then act on that recognition by providing genuine diversity of programming.” If you would like to read the extended version of this speech – click here.

With Public Service Broadcasters bearing a particular responsibility to provide a diverse output, the BBC include an ‘Equal Opportunities and Diversity’ section in their policies and guidelines. Click here to read more about these guidelines.

Although the BBC has these guidelines and schemes in place, they do occasionally fall short of their words. This will be further discussed within this blog at a later date. However I will leave you for now with this news story, on the issue of age, which hit the headlines earlier this week – BBC Diversity?