What does #digitalbritain mean for journalism?
"Hello, operator?"
With the sort of hype only the media can generate when talking about itself, Lord Carter’s long awaited Digital Britain report has been published. It’s supposed to be the blueprint for Britain’s place in the digital world. But is it putting us in a good place?
It comes as journalism’s plight grows even greater; ITV news, Channel 4, countless struggling radio groups and newspaper holdings will all be sifting to see if it contains their saviour…or their downfall.
01. Broadband
The Promise: 2Mbps broadband for everyone (and “action separately to address the issue of next generation broadband”)
Result?: epic fail. While broadband for everyone is great, 2Mbps [...buffering...] broadband is inadequate for [...buffering...] the growing needs of digital journalism including [...buffering...] the huge demand for [...buffering...] video on demand. Separate action to [...buffering...] investigate faster broadband looks like [...buffering...] the buck being well and truly passed.
Meanwhile, in South Korea: “1Gbps Downloading by 2012“
Will it help journalism? Not really. If online video and multimedia is going to start picking up the cash from traditional media it needs to be reliable and fast.
02. Radio
The Promise: All national radio stations to be on DAB only by 2015 ending use of analogue. Spare FM frequencies for “new tier” of community radio. More local news.
Result: fail. DAB is soo last decade, and while the radio sets look quite pretty, by the time this is rolled out, we’ll all be listening to radio on our iPhones. Over the internet. The folks at MixCloud rightly pointed out last night the real investment needs to be in online radio, and making sure the network can cope with it. It also says nothing about the plight of local commercial radio stations, caused by the filthy binge on new licences by Ofcom.
Creating a “new tier” of hyper local community stations is a nice idea – provided they don’t have to be commercially viable. And more local news? Who Lord Carter expects to pay for that (when newsrooms across the land are cutting staff) is a mystery.
Will it help journalism? An emphasis on localness might fool some Whitehall bureaucrats into investing more in local journalism. But don’t hold your breath.
03. Regional TV news
The Promise: 3.5% of BBC’s licence fee (~£130m) to be available to help regional TV news on ITV
Result: good news for ITV. It has been long argued on all sides, the BBC needs strong competition in regional news to keep its standards up. And while that is the case £130m is a lot to spend investing in the “a local lady has turned 100″ fluff which ITV regions currently put on air.
Will it help journalism? In the short term ITV local news does need the cash, and this might even save some jobs. But once again Lord Carter has missed the trick. What we need is a new way of doing television news, for example Michael Rosenblum’s VJ newsroom model. Meanwhile, no word about the BBC’s real competition: Channel 4 News.
04. Hyperlocal news 
The Promise: No promises here, just a recognition that grassroots online projects are good for democracy
Result: fail. Lord Carter says he likes the growing number of hyper-local community sites, but says there can’t be a gap between what these start ups offer, and what the traditional big boys offer. So he’s investing in making sure newspaper groups and the BBC can offer better online, including, bizarrely, an idea to let newspapers use BBC video content. Considering the row over BBC Local in 2007, that’s pretty hilarious.
Will it help journalism: well there’s no promises here, so it’s up to the people to forge the way.
05. Childrens’ Programmes
The Promise: Money to help Channel 4 develop services for that most difficult of audiences: 10-18 year olds
Result: good news. Channel 4 are best placed to understand this market, and embarrassing dad-dancing attempts by the BBC have shown they’re not really “down with the kids”. It won’t solve Channel 4’s funding crisis though.
Will it help journalism: any investment in actually creating content is a good thing.
All government reports, like Christmas presents from your grandparents, are always a little disappointing; sadly yesterday’s report fails to really grasp or embrace the mouth watering potential of the future.
Lord Carter: as us bluggers and twotters and myface yoof types say: “epic fail”.
What’s your “news eco-system”?
The BBC have carried out some research into how the modern homo-sapien consumes its news. They asked a load of people to keep a diary noting everytime they checked up on the news, and how they did it.
Steve Hermann writes about the results here.
Interestingly, their researchers described each person as having their own “news eco-system”: ‘where an individual might read several papers, hear news on the radio, look at various websites and/or TV channels for news’.
Well I hope that pattern isn’t news to the BBC.
But that’s an interesting term, and got me wondering what my news-ecosystem might look like….
0630: BBC 5 LIVE - DAB radio, in bed – to find out the headlines and who’s saying what
0800: Viking FM – DAB radio, in bed – to see what stories I’ll be sent out to cover that day
0830: Radio 1 – radio, in car – to get an idea of how Newsbeat are tailoring the news for their audience.
0900: Scan through the local papers, plus Mail, Mirror and Sun - to get an idea of what our listeners are reading.
Mid morning – a catch up with the big stories online. I also check Media Guardian, BBC News Online, NY Times. I also get email alerts from various sources.
All day – brief glances at Sky News in the office. I’m also drip fed news via IRN’s wire service.
1330 – BBC Look North – to see what the opposition are up to; inevitable plug of Peter Levy’s show.
Evening – check up on social news: Facebook, Google Reader/blogs and Twitter all tell me what people I’m interested in are up to.
1900 – Channel 4 News – but these days for just a few minutes. On Friday’s I love Unreported World.
Evening – alternative news sources if I have time: Current TV
There you go – I count 17 different sources (20 if you breakdown all the local papers, 50 if you add each blog). Each one consumed for no more than 5-10 minutes, and each one I select, chew and spit out as I please.
So what could be a useful conclusion for the future of news? It can be alternative. And it needs to be short.
What’s your eco system? Post below, and maybe we can give David Attenborough a ring!
Apocalypse soon
I wrote a while back about whether the UK media industry would weather the [insert "economic storm" metaphor here].
I reckoned it would be changed significantly at least.
But according to Charlie Beckett writing about a Polis speech by the Guardian’s Emily Bell, that was a bit of an understatement…!
“We are on the brink of two years of carnage for Western media. In the UK five nationals could go out of business and we could be left with no UK owned broadcaster outside of the BBC. We are facing complete market failure in local papers and regional radio. This is sytematic collapse not just a cyclical downturn.”
Never get out of the boat...
The trend’s already begun
Last month I wrote what has to be the most pessimistic of predictions for the future of Channel 4 News, probably Britain’s best quality domestic news product.
A report in the Media Guardian today seems to provide evidence the path to this future has already begun. The amount of “serious factual” programming on the channel appears to have fallen by 25% according to Ofcom.
On the up, unsurprisingly: crap like Supernannies and Big Brother.
But it’s not just Channel 4. The BBC’s flagship 10 o’clock news is potentially facing budget cuts in light of the lower-than-expected licence fee agreement in January.
And as Adrian Monck’s been writing recently, ITV’s news service is tightening it’s belt, with what I only feel able to describe as a piss take new deal.
And that deal’s due to expire…..in 2012, when analogue broadcasting (with it’s requirement for public service news programming) is due to be switched off. It’s not looking healthy.
Incidentally, I’m about to write an essay on news as a commodity…it looks like I’m going to have a lot to talk about!
So the hint is, don’t work in British TV news. Work for the Americans instead. I’m doing an internship at CNN International at the moment which is very interesting and suffering much less from a lack of the greens.
Note: Apologies for the lack of writing recently. The end of term project took most of my energy and my contract at CNN has taken most of my ability to write about what goes on there! Nevertheless I’ll try and bash something out shortly.
A future for Channel 4 News?
Channel 4 chief Andy Duncan’s been making some worrying noises about one of the channel’s greatest assets: Channel 4 News.
As Michael Grade’s been trying to secure future funding for ITV News in the digital era, Duncan’s told a select committee of MPs that Channel 4 News won’t survive in it’s current form.
According to the Press Gazette:
Andy Duncan, Chief Executive of Channel 4, told the cross-party media select committee that Channel 4 News was unlikely to survive in its present form without public subsidy.
He said: “Whilst Channel 4 News is a flagship public service programme on the Channel, it is expensive to make and has limited potential for revenue raising.
“As such it is unlikely to survive in its present form – a one hour peak time programme, containing 40 per cent international news – in a purely commercial environment.”
The reason is simple: broadcasting on an analogue signal, all of the terrestrial channels have a certain public service remit. They’re all using large amounts of airwaves which belong to the public and in return they’re expected to provide us all with some news.
And because of this, and it’s unique public service remit, Channel 4 gets some cash for news.
But hark, on the horizon, the looming spectre of the digital switchover. We know now it’s going to start in Whitehaven on October 17th and will be complete by 2012. By then, all homes will be expected to have a digi-box and analogue transmissions will be turned off.
Broadcasting in naughts and ones is nice and compact. You can fit more channels and and not take up as much public airwaves. And because of this, broadcasters are loosing government cash (except the Beeb, of course.)
And – more worryingly – a channel’s news remit (again, except the BBC), will expire too. Some channels – likely ITV and Five – may well say “screw news – why should I waste my money on that?”
And it looks like Channel 4 News, in spite of it’s scores of awards and cult following, could be forced to change in the next five years. Let’s hope it doesn’t ditch it all together.
Sky News announced it was taking itself off the Freeview platform last month. Fellow journo Doidge rightly says the loss of competition in broadcast news can only be bad. Imagine that on a massive scale – and the redundancy consequences.
News is a bizarre commodity- like war, it costs loads to do with little or no financial returns. Not one to pitch to Dragons Den.
We lie, you blow all your wages on our rubbish quiz
Alas, it seems Richard & Judy’s too-good-to-be-true quiz You Say We Pay has left our screens. It comes after embarrassing allegations that the nations favourite dickish couple were getting us all to call even after they’d chosen the winner.
Hardly surprising. They were always cheating and giving the answers away anyway.
But seeing as it’s been dropped, here’s a hilarious episode of the quiz, courtesy of Adam Buxton from the hilarious Adam & Joe duo.
Keep it simple!
Training to be a broadcast journalist is a bit like being taught a new language. When it comes to writing, you have to ignore all those rules you learned at school and university and the result is something between C++ and poetry.
One of the golden rules hammered into us is to keep things simple. And keep. Your sentences. Short. Listeners and viewers can only take in a news report once. Even in the impending “on-demand” world, they’ll only want to take it in once.
So if you turn on the TV and radio you usually hear short sharp conversational sentences with all the fluff removed.
Usually.
Admittedly, Channel 4 News tries to be different. It aims to be a bit more creative, but from what I gathered from chief writer Felicity Spector when she came into City a few weeks ago, it still has to be concise.
So, what on earth is this all about?
It’s a report on the Chinese president’s visit to Africa this week, by the usually excellent Faisal Islam: ex City student and Channel 4 News‘ business correspondent. It’s an interesting piece, but check out Faisal’s first line (watch it here):
“The Chinese presidents twelve day tour takes in eight nations including Sudan the most controversial of the host countries where Chinas unconditional aid policy has angered western governments many of whom say Beijing should use its economic weight to end hostilities in Darfur.”
Say what?
It’s 43 words long. That’s nearly twice the recommended length of any sentence for broadcast. It could be broken down into no less than four separate sentences:
“It’s a breakneck tour for China’s president: eight countries in a dozen days.
But Hu Jintao’s been criticised for visiting Sudan.
Western leaders want Beijing to use its economic muscle to end violence in Darfur.
Instead in its eagerness for ties with Africa China’s giving aid freely.”
Admittedly that’s not great either. But I think it’s easier to understand, and a bit more conversational.
But it goes to show that even with the best journos working for the best stations, the basic rules sometimes still get broken.
The Battle for Afghanistan
This week Channel 4 News has launched an invasion of Afghanistan, presenting an in-depth series of reports live from the country every night for a week. But the BBC are defending their terrority and pulling out their big guns to win the hearts and minds of the British viewing public. But who will win?
“Channel 4 News from Afghanistan” is the lastest in a strand of excellent ‘news events’ produced by the C4N team, as part of their nightly bulletins. Earlier in the year Jon Snow reported from Iran, a series which was nothing short of groundbreaking. This time, Alex Thompson’s donned the desert fatigues and is presenting the programme live via satellite all week.
Monday’s programme introduced us to the head of Kabul’s CID, in charge of stopping drug dealers and the Taliban, plus an interview with Pakistan’s President Musharref. Tonight the team are getting dirty with the blooming opium industry.
At least half of the 50 minute programme was dedicated to Afghanistan last night so there’s no messing around and each report is a real in-depth analysis of events.
Not to be outdone, the BBC have brought out their heavy artillery in the form of Alistair Leithead, their correspondent embedded with British troops, who did a special report for the 10 O’clock news.
Now I’m no fan of embedding and I think it tarnished the Iraq War coverage but it served the Beeb well yesterday. At times, I thought the package was an astonishing piece of solo-journalism and was ready to praise Leithead’s VJ skills. But it’s since transpired that producer Peter Emerson and cameraman Fred Scott did admirable jobs on the piece. The troops were open and the footage dramatic.
The winner? I think the Beeb took it this time, but with four days left of live coverage from Kabul, Channel 4 News may well prove me wrong.
Incidentally, the BBC/C4N battle is now a digital one. The BBC’s excellent Editors’ Blog has been challenged by the long-needed Channel 4 News blog…
Frustration and inspiration
…all in one day.
Today I’ve been in radio reporter mode, my task: to report for a local station based in North London called EC1 FM.
As part of our training we spend one day newsgathering, and then tomorrow we produce bulletins with our material.
It didn’t look promising as we all rolled in, bleary-eyed, at 9am. There seemed to be a distinct lack of news in the Islington area: the local rag was already a week old, and council websites were fruitless. But we did manage to scrape together about 20 ideas between us, which ranged from a new CCTV initiative in the area, to a local bikshed being given an award (oh yes.)
Normally days like this are one of complete frustration over stories, rather than anything else. Your best idea falls through when the interviewee pulls out. Or worse still, it turns out not to be a story at all. Not today. This time, I somehow managed to grab 3 different stories: a hard news story about asylum seekers living rough on London’s streets, an interview with a local world record holder and an off diary idea about the lack of poppies on sale ahead of armistace day.
But then the frustrations began.
I recorded some vox pops with students about whether they’d been able to get hold of poppies. Great stuff, but the battery on my Minidisc recorder died halfway through.
Then I went to Highbury, North London, and got a good interview with the record holder (she irons clothes under water). Then to Shoreditch to Amnesty International HQ to record an interesting asylum seeker interview.
I’m a happy man, but when I get back to Uni, I discover the MD has mysteriously erased my interviews. Aaargh!
It’s the worst feeling ever, but at least it’s happened now rather than when I’m getting paid. Definitely going to be more careful from now on.
So I ended the day feeling immensely frustrated. After work, we headed for a talk by some of the team behind Channel 4’s excellent Unreported World. The reporter of last Friday’s programme about gang warfare in Guatemala is Ramita Navai, an ex-City student, who amazingly only graduated from here 3 years ago. Alongside her was David Lloyd, renowned producer, behind Dispatches and Unreported World on Channel 4.
It was a totally inspiring two hours – Unreported World is a brilliant, unique piece of journalism, that goes to the places we never hear about. And Ramita’s story of how she got to where she is, gave us all the real get-up-and-go to do great stuff. It takes time, perseverance and, it would seem, luck to make it far in television journalism, but I felt far more motivated than ever before.
If you’re in the UK, watch the programme: Friday’s 19:30 on Channel 4. If not, you can listen to the programme in radio, by clicking here.
So a bit of a mix today, but far better than any day at the office!
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