Au Revoir

Like my colleagues, I feel we’ve covered certain valid aspects of Public Service Broadcasting but like many of the opinions on here indicate, it’s a vast area to look in to. Add the factor of impartiality in the digital age (which was our main focus) there are more guesses involved than factual evidence of which way we’re headed.

Social media has indeed taken precedence over our lives when it comes to information, which makes it absolutely imperative for the BBC to maintain their strong filtration channels and use them ever more than previously.

With regards to the importance of Twitter and it’s influence over the younger generation, I was divided untill I saw the example used below by my colleague, featuring tweets from Channel 4′s Jon Snow. Having read some of them, the spelling errors and grammatical errors as a result of trying to cram everything in to 140 characters worries me.

Not just because I personally cannot stand cryptic writing and “txtng lng” but common sense tells you that there will be many of the younger members of Jon Snow’s following, whose spelling and grammatical abilities would be subconsciously affected by reading what one of British journalism’s stalwarts writes on his feed.

I don’t doubt his abilities for a second but the point is, whatever the reasons are for the misspellings and confusing grammar, they still went on the feed because there isn’t a filter to correct them. That is where the filtering of the BBC is not just imperative but a necessity as well.

Not just for impartiality but to maintain the high standards and high regard for public service broadcasting in the public’s eyes.

Having criticised Jon Snow to some extent, I feel it’s only fair I open the doors of my tweets to you in case you find any errors in my work. Do drop me a line if you do. It’s only fair and impartial.

Thanks for joining us here on the blog, it’s been a privilege. Been an absolute pleasure working with my colleagues Jessica Dowse, Lucy Bickerton, and James Horrell. Hope to see you soon.

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 -

Preserving Impartiality

The argument was really about whether impartiality as a virtue could survive the huge influx of technology which has constantly been paving open the way for a double ended conversation.

Doubts have been raised over whether this raises the chances of biased views and opinions and appearing on news websites, which have always worked towards maintaining a balanced view. But surely that itself preserves impartiality in the bigger picture doesn’t it?

It’s about not presenting just one view which is straight down the middle but also housing the various ones existing on either sides of the equilibrium – from extreme ends to the more liberal centre.

Whether it’s television, online, radio, it still ends up representing everyone’s views equally.

Without Bias. Surely if it houses every kind of opinion under the sun. Obviously there are comment filters but they are generally there to prevent abusive and intentionally offensive points of view. People can still have extreme views without malice. Then surely, that is only going to contribute to further preserving impartiality in the digital age.

Our presentation

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

The Digital Age

The concept seems simple enough in literal terms. Digital Age, used synonymously with the term ‘Information Age’ is the phenomenon of everyday lives; whether private or professional, being governed in some form or another by technology.

By technology, you would instantly think computers and the internet. it has been defined as ‘the practical application of science to commerce or industry’. Digital Age, would have to be the vastly expanded culture of using the exact science of the worldwide web in our everyday lives.

The fact that majority of our information today is derived from the Internet, facilitated with its ever-growing array of features and application uses, has perhaps made us very dependent on technology.

This has its positive as well as negative effects on our lives and society in general. Just the fact that this piece alone has been facilitated by the use of internet search engines, as it’s being written, goes to show how much we depend on technology to do what used to be done manually – physically going through books and other information sources to find the required information.

Even the use of the web-links above to link to other pieces of information, almost completely illustrates the point of this topic. I don’t have to staple a copy of what has been said, with this piece, to provide my points with some ground to stand on. I can simply provide your mouse cursors with an address to travel to in the blink of an eye and see for yourselves.

Before the uses of technology became prevalent, the travelling in this context would take a lot longer than a blink. But with technology, time required to perform a logistical task has been cut short by a long way. That is essentially what the Digital Age has done for us.

It has made information easier to access, with a lot less effort required on both ends of the stick.

Explore this Virtual Workspace.

Note the way all the different bits of related information are grouped and laid out, as it would in an office. Every work is credited to someone, and every piece of information is available to authorised personnel to access and facilitate their own work.

This would be possible manually as well of course, but think about the time factor required to do it that way. This isn’t to say technology is good or bad at the present moment, that’s what we’re out to discover eventually within the context of this project. This is merely an illustration.

Also, think about how else it would be possible for us to conduct this project, available for all to see, as and when it progresses.

Quality. What defines the quality of news and current affairs?

At first this seems a fairly easy question to answer…we all know quality when we see it don’t we? It’s how good something is. But what is good? My brother happens to think Hollyoaks is good…I don’t, does that make me wrong?

But who can really say what’s good and bad…who has the right to make that call…the expertise and knowledge to be able to assess all the factors, impartially and decide what is good and therefore has quality?

Elusive

No one. Not even the director general of the BBC sat down on his own and defined what quality was before he wrote his speech about putting it first: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/thompson_ft.shtml

He will have considered what the masses view as quality. Aggregated the opinions and tastes of everyone from the Queen to a homeless man… taken into account all the diverse parts of his audience and found quality to lie with those somewhere in the middle….because there’s more of them…and general consensus on quality is an integral part of the whole concept.

Quality journalism

In terms of journalism where does this leave us? Well, with Public Service Broadcasting the public pay, so the public should receive what they generally regard as quality output. They trust choices to be made that do put quality first.

Especially from PSB, people expect more truth, depth, authority, impartiality and knowledge from their journalists, thus, more quality. But these things take time. Perhaps that is the definition of quality…things that take time, care, real thought and consideration? I like that.

A matter of trust

But how can journalists produce quality work, pieces that take time and need deep analysis and research to be understood, in the days of 24hr news? When they must constantly tweet, update a website, load a photo, write a blog, where do they find time to become knowledgeable, to check they know all they can and produce something of quality?

The BBC is certainly trying to figure this out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/08/bbc-online—putting-quality-f.shtml

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?

Public Service Broadcasting: What is it?

As an introduction to the question we are exploring, it seemed necessary to define and to highlight the parameters of the question. As a result here is our understanding of what Public Service Broadcasting is:

The most simplified, categorical definition for Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) is broadcasting made, financed and controlled by the public, for the public. It is neither commercial nor state-owned and realistically should also be free of political interference.

‘Purpose’

The aims and principles of PSB are to inform, educate and entertain the public which pays for its upkeep and output. Alongside this, universality of service, diversity of programming and provision for minority audiences including the disadvantaged are synonymous with this form of broadcast.

Currently the only provider of PSB in Britain is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who collect an annual charge of £145.50 (as of April 1st 2010) – which has been frozen for six years in a bid to keep the public satisfied in difficult economic times.

By law, UK residents who watch or record TV as it is broadcast are required to be covered by a TV licence. This includes DVD/video recorders, TV on computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Non-live programmes are, however, available for free consumption on the latter three.

‘Worth the price?’

According to the company’s ‘About the BBC’ section of the website, licence fee payer’s money was spent predominantly on TV (£7.85 per household per month) and radio programming (£2.01 per household per month). The total breakdown can be found here. The charge has been rising steadily year-on-year and will certainly be a topic covered over the coming weeks.

As it stands the UK licence fee is the fourth cheapest in Europe, being bettered only by R.O.I, Italy, the Czech Republic and France.

The expectation upon erection of the BBC was that the ‘corporation would emphasize serious, educational, and cultural programming that would elevate the level of intellectual and aesthetic tastes of the audience’ (information courtesy of

Of course it is not only the United Kingdom that have the availability of public service broadcasting. Other European countries such as Switzerland, Denmark and Germany. Outside of Europe, Canada, Australia and America all provide their own models of the PBS system.