Why Jeremy Paxman is the new Charles Wheeler

Tonight he steps up to get the first ever Charles Wheeler Award at Westminster University from his boss Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general. Paxo is now the worthy wearer of Wheeler’s Crown. Well deserved.

Charles loved words and using them. So does Paxman. Witness this week, Paxman calling Esther Rantzen a ‘retired television nabob’. Ouch.

It’s what good journalists do; we use words. Charles transformed any film which he reported. I’ve seen very so-so stories become very good watches when reported by Wheeler. Paxman, lest we forget now that he is in a warm studio, was the best film reporter of his generation. Look at some of the films from the Central American frontline 30 years ago. The man learned early.

Charles liked to cause mischief. All good hacks do. He was once heavily censured by the BBC bosses for being rude to royalty on tour. Did he care? Not a jot! Think Paxman and Blair: ‘Do you and President Bush pray together?’ and my all-time favourite to Shaun Woodward, the new MP for St Helens in deepest Lancashire: ‘Mr Woodward did your butler vote Labour?’ (Woodward is very rich and was parachuted to St Helens. He did have a butler).

Charles was less the master of the studio than Paxo has become. Charles always looked a mite uncomfortable, Paxo not. A caged animal waiting for its prey. It’s no wonder Gordon Brown refuses to be interviewed by him. Paxo takes Newsnight up a gear when he presents it.

Both are, to use that wonderful English word, ‘curmudgeonly’. So what? There are too many smiling faces on TV and too many autocuties. Curmudgeons find things out – even if they do not make huge numbers of friends. But then good hacks are loners.

For all of their similarities (and differences) who can begrudge Paxo the title of King of the TV Journalism jungle? Not me.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He produced last month’s Media Society Annual Award Dinner for Jeremy Paxman.

Note: updated with subbing corrections 21.05.09

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Animation: newspapers vs the Internet

Mark Fiore captures the newspaper vs internet debate succinctly in this animated short film featuring a grumpy old newspaper and a squeaky, geeky laptop.

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Media140: Pat Kane on using social media and journalism

“Reading a newspaper on a street corner might be seen as banal. What’s becoming just as banal is producing news on that street corner,” Pat Kane, co-founder of the Sunday Herald and author of ‘The Play ethic’, said in his opener at today’s Media140 conference.

The growth of social media and online publishing is showing ‘just how quotidian and everyday the practice of journalism becomes in this everyday environment’, he added.

Speaking at the microblogging and journalism event, Kane said there are some key reasons/benefits for journalists using social media tools:

• Beat reporting

• Early warning system– communities decide what’s the news. “Twitter’s the canary in the coal mine – Overlap with trad journalism

• Real-time content

• Traceable sources/interviewees/leads – “How much better can journalism practice be in a civic space?” asked Kane. Social media can be ‘an enrichment of a classic journalistic process’.

• Can you help? – asking readers for tips, feedback etc
  

• As a promotional tool

• An expertise archive – “Used to be called desk research, now it’s handheld device responsiveness.”

But asks Kane:

“How distributive and collaborative are journalists prepared to be?”

“To what extent might the Darwinian acid that new media is throwing onto organisations transform them?

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Media140: Follow the event liveblog

Sky News is liveblogging today’s microblogging meets journalism event, Media140. You can follow it below.

@journalismnews will be tweeting occasional updates from 2:30pm, but follow this blog and the main news channel for more.

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Sir Michael Lyons on the BBC Trust, the licence fee and how it’s spent

Below a Wordle of last night’s speech from Sir Michael Lyons, chair of the BBC Trust, to the Royal Television Society, in which Lyons defended the Trust’s role as a guardian of the BBC licence fee:

“In my book, ‘guardianship of the public interest in the BBC’ includes seeing off opportunistic attempts to spend the licence fee on things that have nothing to do with the BBC’s public purposes. Any proposal to spend any of the licence fee has to be judged against the public value it delivers. That’s the acid test.

“Let’s not forget whose money we are talking about here. Not the government’s, not political parties’, not other regulators’ and ultimately not the BBC’s. It’s the public’s money. It’s licence-fee payers’ money. People would do well to remember that licence fee payers give us their money in good faith, believing it will be spent on BBC services and content.”

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Media Release: AOL and Bauer partner for UK parenting site

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Strange Attractor: Journalists and ‘audience entitlement’

Sparked by a comment from Adam Tinworth on Twitter, Kevin Anderson unpicks the idea that some journalists/news organisations believe they have both a right to an audience and deserve an audience.

“It’s the height of institutional arrogance and self-importance, and it’s obvious to anyone who even has one foot outside of the bubble of institutional journalism that this is the case. But therein lies the rub. For many journalists, we never get outside of this bubble. I think it’s one of the reasons that journalists are bewildered by the fact that viewership and readership numbers are declining,” he writes.

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Baekdal: ‘A tour through the history of information’

“…or more specifically, where to focus your efforts if you want to get in touch with other people.”

First published last month and complete with a graph representing the last 210 years of information (!), Thomas Baekdal how the release and consumption of ‘news’ has shifted with the advent of new technologies and media.

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Christian Science Monitor: ‘Journalists deserve low pay’

…so writes Robert G. Picard in this CSM opinion piece that’s likely to spark some debate.

Central to Picard’s argument (it’s worth reading the whole thing before unleashing a response):

“Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren’t creating much value these days.”

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – make a smart move

Smart moves: Want people to know you’ve moved jobs? Email Journalism.co.uk to feature your update in our smart moves section. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

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