Guardian: Hundreds of jobs at risk at BBC World Service

Director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks has warned that hundreds of jobs will “need to go” at the World Service following government funding cuts, the Media Guardian reported yesterday.

Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee that the World Service would propose the closure of some foreign-language broadcasts in the face of the cuts, the report adds.

“We are a very staff-heavy organisation, most of our costs are in people,” Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee. “So the reduction in staff numbers will be broadly in line with the level of savings that we need to make, ie more than 16 per cent. Our staffing is 2,000 so you can work it out relatively straightforwardly. It will be hundreds of jobs that need to go.”

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Telegraph.co.uk: BBC to apologise to Band Aid and Geldof over funding slurs

The BBC is to make a series of apologies to the Band Aid Trust and Sir Bob Geldof for programmes broadcast earlier this year, which gave the impression that money raised by Band And and Live Aid had been diverted to a rebel group in Ethiopia.

According to the Telegraph, the BBC’s apology, aired on all outlets where the claims were broadcast, will say: “The BBC wishes to make clear that these statements should not have been broadcast, and to apologise unreservedly to the Band Aid Trust for the misleading and unfair impression which was created. The BBC also wishes to apologise to Sir Bob Geldof for implying that he had declined to be interviewed because he thought the subject too sensitive to be discussed openly.”

Full story on the Telegraph at this link…

An explanation about the delay in apologising for the “wrong impression” was given by the director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks on the Today programme this morning.

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iPad apps – Wired UK unveils iPad edition and Independent’s i reveals launch plans

The UK version of Wired magazine launched its iPad edition yesterday, according to paidContent.

The edition, which costs £2.39 to download, is a one-off before the magazine “takes a slight pause to assess/iterate before moving to monthly publication”, Wired UK editor David Rowan said in a previous interview with paidContent.

The Independent’s new title ‘i’ has also revealed plans to launch an iPad app later this month.

MD for digital at the Evening Standard and Independent Zach Leonard confirmed to Journalism.co.uk today that the compact paper will be developed through an iPad app which he hopes will be released on the app store later this month.

It’s very exciting for us. We are being confidential in terms of the specific price but it will be subscription based.

It draws directly from the i itself. Given the multimedia capabilities we will be adding increasing functionality over time.

He added that the app would provide the title with a payment mechanism for quality journalism, with an Independent app also currently under development.

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Journalism MA student: why I deferred after a month into my course

A frank post on the Wannabe Hacks site from blogger ‘the detective’ on why he has deferred his place on a postgraduate journalism course:

After just a month living in Bethnal Green and at the start of my fourth week of my MA at City University London I made the very difficult decision to defer my place at City. Having spent the past weeks debating my choice I know now that I made the right decision.

Money was becoming to be a problem and despite my best efforts to make savings, I knew that by the end of the course in June I would be completely broke having lived in London for a year without an income on top of the debt from my undergraduate degree. I am not for a minute suggesting that I am the only postgrad with money worries, nor am I looking for any sympathy, I am just outlining the factors in my decision.

Full post on Wannabe Hacks at this link…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – search engines for journalists

David Higgerson has followed up on a previous post on search engines with this new list of alternative search platforms which could be useful for journalists digging for information. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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BECTU members apply to NUJ in order to join BBC strikes

Leading activists from the media and entertainment union Bectu have decided to leave and instead apply to join the National Union of Journalists so they can take part in planned strike action at the BBC over pensions, according to the Workers United trade union blog.

The four – until today members of the BECTU audio and music branch committee – explained their decision to colleagues across the corporation in a 1,500 word email.

Journalism.co.uk reported last week that members at BBC staff unions, except for the NUJ, had voted as a majority to accept the latest proposals. The NUJ’s members however voted to reject the proposals and as a result fresh strike dates were set. The first 48-hour walkout is due to start on Friday.

Hatip: Jon Slattery

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James Harding: It’s too early to think about plan B

BBC Radio 4′s The Media Show today broadcast an interview with the Times’ editor James Harding following yesterday’s release of figures for the Times and Sunday Times paywalls.

When asked if there is a ‘plan B’, Harding said while it was a reasonable question, he thought it was too early to be asking it.

It’s really early days. We sold newspapers in print for 225 years, we continued to do that, we’ve sold newspapers on screen for four months. What we’ve been encouraged by is the fact that they’re selling, our customers really like them and as a result of that we as the Times are growing. I think it would be a little early for us to start thinking to ourselves about plan Bs and alternatives.

We have to keep on developing and re-developing, inventing and re-inventing what we do because the reality is that the technologies and what they can do are changing around us all the time.

Hear the show in full here…

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#jpod: The Paul Foot Award: hear from the evening’s winners

Last night Journalism.co.uk attended the Paul Foot Award 2010, which was presented to Clare Sambrook for her reports on the detention of families seeking asylum.

At the event, which is run by Private Eye and the Guardian, a Special Lifetime Campaign Award was also presented to Eamonn McCann, who spent 40 years reporting on events surrounding Bloody Sunday.

We speak to both winners about their work and their views on the investigative journalism industry. Listen to our jpod from the event below:

Podcast: Download

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NCTJ discusses cost-cutting measures with universities

Directors of NCTJ-accredited university courses discussed ways to cut costs at a meeting with NCTJ management last week at the annual NCTJ undergraduate forum.

Ideas put forward included streamlining examiner training, providing additional online resources and doing more proactive block marketing of accredited courses.

The NCTJ has posted details of the discussions which took place during the meeting which focused on the impact of government cuts to higher education funding.

The forum also discussed the importance of the industry accreditation, which it claimed was “crucial for maintaining high standards and maximising employability in the face of spending reductions”.

Concerns about the impact of the education funding cuts on the journalism industry were also raised by the new  cross-media accreditation board, which met for the first time in September, with members calling for the protection of accredited courses. Following the debate which ensued Journalism.co.uk began a poll to measure ongoing opinion on the value of the NCTJ accreditation. At the time of writing the majority (47 per cent) had responded that accreditation is ‘useful but not necessary’, while 27 per cent feel it is ‘unnecessary’. The remaining 26 per cent have split evenly between viewing the accreditation as ‘essential’ and ‘in need of updating’.

You can still have your say here.

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Global Radio News: Investing in local reporters before stories break

Nieman Reports has an interesting article by Henry Peirse, founder of Global Radio News, an online agency for reporters, in which he discusses how the organisation began and how it hopes to support foreign journalists.

As an agency, GRN aims to suggest stories for broadcasters to cover, based on ideas sent in on a daily basis from reporters across the world, Peirse says.

GRN tries as much as possible to use journalists who live where the story is taking place. Local journalists have the gift of institutional knowledge and this can set them apart from those who parachute into a story, though the old-timers can also be ready to leap in given the expertise they carry inside of them. When they were foreign correspondents, they settled in a region of the world and got to know their way around; they were ready when news broke. In this tweeting generation of journalists, deep digging isn’t valued so this kind of ingrained knowledge doesn’t grow. Of course this is understandable at a time when it’s the rare news organization that invests in having a reporter watch a story until it becomes news.

This is what Peirse says GRN aims to do, “to support reporters by finding them and investing in them before a story breaks in their backyard”. Once it has, GRN can connect them to broadcasters.

Read more from Peirse on the model here…

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