Category Archives: Broadcasting

Guardian: Greg Dyke’s LTN group to bid for national TV network

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The Guardian reports this morning that the Local Television Network, which is headed by former BBC director general Greg Dyke, is planning on bidding for a new national TV network announced by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt last month.

Dyke’s group, which is yet to be incorporated, agreed at a meeting on Monday to put in a formal expression of interest in running the national channel to Hunt, who is asking for submissions by Tuesday, 1 March. LTN joins Richard Horwood’s Channel 6 in the bidding for the national TV channel.

The new channel forms part of the government’s review of media and communications, unveiled by Hunt at the Oxford Media Convention. The initial schemes will be focused on 10 to 20 local TV services, operating by 2015 with the first local services licensed from 2012.

Al Jazeera gives the public a chance to ask the questions for Cameron interview

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A series of monthly interviews with leaders across the world that gives the public the chance to ask the questions will feature David Cameron on 25 February.

World View, an Al Jazeera series, asks for questions to be sent in either by video or text.

More information on Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel at this link.

Blood and Dust: Vaughan Smith on the rescue teams saving lives in Afghanistan

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Frontline Club founder and freelance filmmaker Vaughan Smith has produced a new film following two weeks embedded with the US Army’s 214th Aviation Regiment in Afghanistan.

The film, produced for Al Jazeera’s People & Power series, follows the trials of a US military air ambulance crew as they attempt to save the lives of soldiers, local nationals and Taliban fighters alike.

“I have done a fair number of military embeds in Afghanistan over the last few years,” says Smith, “but was concerned that I hadn’t filmed the suffering of war, just its machinery.”

“I have worked with Al Jazeera on this because I couldn’t find another news broadcaster in Britain that would show the film without cutting out the stronger images. I have huge respect for the way Al Jazeera as a broadcaster engages the world while so many others appear to retreat from it,” he adds.

Media Briefing editor Patrick Smith says: “What I enjoy about Vaughan’s work is its absence of politics. A BBC, Sky or CNN journalist may frame a report around whether the troops should be at war or not. This is just a document of professionals at work, doing their job, stitching people up in the most unimaginable heat and horror.”

More information on the Frontline Club site at this link.

Beet.tv: Broadcasters discuss use of user generated content

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In the video below, from Beet.tv, US broadcasters debate the “challenge” of using user-generated content to cover breaking news and the importance of verification in this process.

Kevin Roach from the Associated Press talks about how the news agency dealt with content being sent in during the Egyptian protests, and the dangers of not verifying UGC material. CNN.com’s Mike Toppo adds that he feels the best way to approach user generated content is with the aim of building a community, such as it does with iReport.

Journalisted Weekly: (Ex) President Mubarak, Big Society, and The King’s Speech

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.

It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations.

Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

for the week ending Sunday 13 February

  • Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in Egypt dominated the news
  • Cameron’s Big Society under fire and The King’s Speech at the Baftas kept things British
  • A suicide bomber in school uniform and alleged torture in Egypt received little coverage

News about the joint Media Standards Trust/Cardiff University local news project, including an ITV Wales programme, available on our website

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

Covered lots

  • Hosni Mubarak, resigning from the Egyptian presidency after 30 years in power and 18 days of popular protests, 629 articles
  • PM David Cameron preparing to defend his Big Society policy in face of renewed criticism, 125 articles
  • British film The King’s Speech, sweeping the board at the Baftas as predicted, 118 articles

Covered little

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

Who wrote a lot about…’Mubarak’

Chris McGreal – 16 articles (The Guardian), Andrew England – 9 articles (Financial Times), Donald MacIntyre – 9 articles (The Independent), Sadie Gray – 8 articles (The Times), Heba Saleh – 8 articles (Financial Times), Roula Khalaf – 8 articles (Financial Times), Martin Fletcher – 8 articles (The Times), Jack Shenker – 8 articles (The Guardian), Adrian Blomfield – 8 articles (The Telegraph), James Hider – 7 articles (The Times)

Long form journalism

OJB: Three things the BBC has done for online journalism

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Three weeks on from the announcement that the BBC would cut 360 jobs as part of a 25 per cent cut to its online budget, Paul Bradshaw looks at three things the corporation has done for online journalism.

1. Web writing style

The BBC’s way of writing for the web has always been a template for good web writing, not least because of the BBC’s experience with having to meet similar challenges with Ceefax – the two shared a content management system and journalists writing for the website would see the first few pars of their content cross-published on Ceefax too.

Even now it is difficult to find an online publisher who writes better for the web.

Full post on Online Journalism Blog at this link.

Metro: Fan saves BBC websites from deletion for £2.50

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More than 170 BBC sites due to be deleted have been anonymously archived and made available to download via bitTorrent.

The anonymous campaigner reported that the process cost him just $3.99 (£2.50).

While the torrent was created anonymously, some sources have suggested that the person behind it is Ben Metcalfe, also known as dotBen, who posted a link to the archive on Twitter with the message: “So here it is… if you want to download the torrent backup of all the sites the BBC are closing.”

Full story on Metro.co.uk at this link.

Pew: Egypt protests prove biggest international story in a single week since 2007

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The recent protests in Egypt have been recorded as the “biggest international story in a single week” in the past four years by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index.

According to the Pew report the stories accounted for 20 per cent of the ‘newshole’ – the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV – from 24 to 30 January and then 56 per cent from 31 January to 6 February . This went beyond any coverage of the Iraq war, the Haiti earthquake and the conflict in Afghanistan, the report adds.

One reason for the extraordinary level of coverage thus far has been journalists’ access to the scenes of protests and violence in Egypt that they have transmitted to US news audiences. That has been borne out by this finding from the News Coverage Index: In the past two weeks―from January 24-February 6―almost half (45 per cent) of all the stories about the unrest studied by PEJ have been reported directly from Egypt and neighboring countries.

Roly Keating on the BBC’s online archive plans

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The director of the BBC’s archive, Roly Keating, has explained more about the corporation’s major project to build a permanent online archive of broadcast material from Radio 4, Radio 3 and BBC Four.

Journalism.co.uk reported yesterday that the BBC Trust had given the all-clear for the project to go ahead.

Keating, a former controller of BBC Two, said in a blog post that the goal was to make the best of what the BBC had to offer searchable, linkable and shareable for years to come.

“In the online age the task of making more of the wealth of [the corporation’s] fantastic archives easily accessible to audiences is an inseparable part of the BBC’s mission as a public service broadcaster,” he wrote.

“Once published every one of these programmes will become part of a standing resource at the heart of BBC Online, linkable to by others inside and outside the BBC, re-usable by future producers and editors for new propositions as yet undreamt of, and discoverable through open search by anyone pursuing an interest in the topic of the programme.

“And as media becomes ever more social, individuals will find their own personal treasures in the collection, and popularise them among their friends and networks.”

Journalisted Weekly: Hosni Mubarak, Fernando Torres, and Cyclone Yasi

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.

It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations.

Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

for the week ending Sunday 6 February

  • Ongoing popular protests in Egypt covered across press
  • Football (Association and American) hogs the back pages
  • Massive Afghan bank fraud and China-Zimbabwe investment hardly covered

Covered lots

  • Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, refusing to step down immediately but entering negotiations with opposition groups, 743 articles
  • Footballer Fernando Torres, making his Chelsea FC debut against former club Liverpool, 152 articles
  • The Super Bowl, in which the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25, 115 articles
  • Cyclone Yasi hitting the already flood stricken coast of Queensland, 114 articles

Covered little

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

Who wrote a lot about…’Omar Suleiman’

Richard Spencer – 10 articles (Telegraph), James Hider – 7 articles (The Times), Ian Black – 7 articles (The Guardian), Tom Chivers – 6 articles (Telegraph), Colin Freeman – 6 articles (Telegraph)

Long form journalism

More from the Media Standards Trust

News about the joint Media Standards Trust/Cardiff University local news project, including an ITV Wales programme, available on our website

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe