Tag Archives: BBC Colege of Journalism

BBC producer takes on Newser’s users and wins

Charles Miller, a producer at the BBC College of Journalism, gives an entertaining account of his experience using Newser’s readers editing feature ‘Newser by Users’.

The feature offers anyone the chance to ‘play editor’ with an online story, changing the headline and summary before posting it online.

The best picks get elevated into the site’s front page, alongside their own journalists’ work.

Miller gives us his account:

After a few more sentences, I was ready to publish. Seconds later, my story was up there on Newser. It was soon shunted along by “WV Senator Robert C. Byrd, 92 died this morning” and other, more recent uploads, many from someone called Disillusioned – who should really have been called Super-Keen or perhaps Time on My Hands. I clicked on Most Popular, but, sadly, no sign of my piece (…) HOLD THE FRONT PAGE … As I was writing the above, I took another look at Newser and, guess what? My story has been catapulted to prominence – given a proper photograph and promoted to the lead spot on the front page.

(…) Hey, I’ve made it as an unpaid drone in the cut-throat world of US online journalism! Eat your heart out, Disillusioned!

See his full post here…

‘The media shouldn’t be able to trash reputations in the heat of the moment’: BBC’s Kevin Marsh on libel reform

Kevin Marsh from the BBC College of Journalism has a thought-provoking blog post on Lord Lester’s libel bill, asking whether the public’s voice is loud enough to be heard in the debate.

Analysing the main changes in the private member’s bill, Marsh says it “tackles some of the current laws’ deficiencies head on” but “body swerves others”.

Biggest swerve is that this bill doesn’t do what many newspapers and freedom of information campaigners wanted – reverse the burden of proof (…) On the other hand, the bill proposes that, unless it’s decided otherwise, a libel action should be heard by a judge sitting without a jury.

But his biggest concern is that public views may not be as easily heard as the media’s.

Isn’t there the possibility, at the very least, that those who have no self-interest in all of this believe that that ‘chilling effect’ is no bad thing; that the media shouldn’t be able to trash reputations in the heat of the journalistic moment; and that the possibility/threat of legal sanction might, in the wider public interest, possibly do more good than harm?

Full post at this link…