Category Archives: Events

Comedy stars stage benefit gig for libel reform

Frontline Club debate: social media is important, but not a kingmaker yet

MPs, Westminster hacks and activists might be addicted to expressing themselves in 140 characters or less, but don’t expect this year’s general election to be decided on which party has the best social media strategy.

Then again, politicians and the media shouldn’t dismiss voters’ digital engagement, according to a panel at a Frontline Club debate on the importance on social media for the upcoming election.

You can watch a video of the whole thing here…

Twitter certainly has the potential to land politicians in mini-media storms; the panellists agreed: if David Wright MP had merely told a reporter verbally that Conservatives are “scum” it’s unlikely to have got much coverage, such is the continued novelty of Twitter to many news editors.

Paul Staines, better known as mischievous Westminster blogger Guido Fawkes, argued that no matter how well connected parties are, with Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems towing similar centerist policy lines there was little to differentiate them for the ordinary voter: “If they are all marching in the centre ground, there’s not much to market, is there?”

And as for reporters, they’re “not going to get a scoop from Tweetdeck”, he warned. “There are about 500 of us (in the Westminster village) listening to each other aren’t there?”

Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy said social media buzz doesn’t determine what C4 leads its 7pm bulletin with – but Twitter got the network’s reporters in touch with someone in the audience at Nick Griffin’s notorious Question Time performance.

But all this is missing the point, according to Chris Condron, Press Association’s head of digital strategy:

If you ask any journalist what they think about a phenomenon like Twitter (…) they tend to think about what it means for journalists, but where its potential really lies is for audiences.

The “disintermediation” of news – where readers can go straight to the source of news, such as an MP’s Twitter stream – was a challenge for the media, but Condron is confident that “the reporters’ gathering and filtering of raw news was still essential.”

More events coming up at the Frontline Club:

Reflections with Richard Sambrook – a one-to-one conversation with the BBC’s outgoing director of global news. He’s headed for a new role as vice-president of PR firm Edelman, but how does he look back on a rich career and what is his view of journalism today?

Iraq: The Media Inquiry – a special panel discussion to examine the media’s reporting of Iraq since the invasion in 2003. With Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News; Patrick Cockburn, The Independent’s Middle East correspondent and journalist David Rose. Moderated by Paddy O’Connell, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

Insight with Timothy Garton Ash – the columnist and Oxford professor will be in conversation with Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow will be in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow. Garton Ash will be talking about his career, the transformation of Europe over the last thirty years and what Barack Obama will mean for the United States and the world.

On the Media: Is the age of celebrity-obsessed media coming to an end? We discuss whether the ubiquitous presence of pseudo-famous faces on newspapers and news bulletins is here to stay. With comedian and journalist Jane Bussman; Popbitch founder Camilla Wright; Heat magazine editor and broadcaster Sam Delaney. Chaired by Robin Morgan, former editor of the Sunday Times magazine. This event is in association with the BBC College of Journalism.

This post also appears at the Frontline Club’s Forum blog.

NCTJ to make qualification ‘more relevant to digital age’

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The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) has presented plans to make its qualification more relevant to the digital age, as reported by Journalism.co.uk in December last year.

Senior board members discussed the proposals with current students at the third annual NCTJ Student Council, held at the Guardian‘s Kings Cross offices on Friday.

The day also saw the NCTJ preview a sleek new website which they hope to have online by the end of February.

Chief executive Joanne Butcher outlined a vision to broaden the NCTJ into a converged training body providing a ‘gold standard’ multimedia journalism qualification.

She said: “The core skills remain the same as ever, but the new qualification will have more of an emphasis on multimedia.”

The new qualification, which will be taught from September, will see integration of public affairs and media law examinations and the introduction of broadcasting into the qualification.

Shevon Houston, events and website manager for the NCTJ, previewed the new website for the 43 delegates who attended. She said the “fresh, dynamic, easy to navigate” interface would replace the current cluttered design.

The new site includes a searchable database of accredited courses, as well as a student and trainee login area which people enrolled on NCTJ programmes can use to check exam results and find job vacancies. Looking for convenient bins for hire in Auckland? You’re in the right place! Our company offers a wide selection of bins available for hire to meet all your waste disposal needs. Whether you’re renovating your home, clearing out your garage, or managing a construction site, we have the perfect bins to accommodate your requirements. Our bins for hire in Auckland are not only convenient but also cost-effective. We understand the importance of staying within budget, which is why we offer competitive pricing and flexible rental options. Say goodbye to the stress of waste management and hello to hassle-free bin hire in Auckland

There is also a forum for students and trainees to debate issues.

Plans to modify the current industry-benchmark shorthand exam were also discussed.

At present, all candidates must be able to take down 100 words per minute for four minutes with a maximum of 10 errors. But, in order to test candidates’ listening skills, from September they will have to identify a quote within a passage and take it down with perfect accuracy to pass the test.

Ciaran Jones is a trainee journalist at Cardiff University. He keeps a blog on travelling and journalism and you can also follow him on Twitter.

Jobseeking advice doled out at NCTJ student council meeting

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Journalism students were told that they needed to be “persistent nosey gossips” by Society of Editors’ executive director Bob Satchwell, at the NCTJ’s student council meeting at Guardian News & Media on Friday.

The annual event brings together students from NCTJ-accredited courses, NCTJ staff and board members as well as working professionals.

Students were given the chance to question the panel of experts, who offered advice on becoming employed.

Managing editor of the Sun, Graham Dudman, said not to submit a CV that is more than one page long.

“You’re not that interesting,” he said, “keep it short and to the point. That is where you are going to score.”

Dudman also claimed that if there are any spelling mistakes in an application it will instantly go in the bin.

Editor of Easyjet magazine, Jeroen Bergmans, echoed Dudman’s comments on spelling mistakes, adding that some even spell his name wrong.

Dave King, editor of the Swindon advertiser advised trainees that the one essential quality is shorthand, stating that “without 100wpm you won’t get a look in”.

Other advice given was to avoid looking lazy by addressing a cover letter with the word ‘sir’ instead of the editor’s name. Brien Beharrell, editorial director, Newbury Weekly News Group warned that if the phrase “I have a passion for writing” appeared, the applicant would not hear back from her.

Beharrell said she would rather see a demonstration that students are writing regularly, whether for a local newspaper or a university magazine.

Dominic Ponsford, editor of Press Gazette, said what impressed him most was someone who was “fantastically enthusiastic”. He suggested writing your CV as if it were a news story itself, with the most eye-catching information at the top. Ponsford also said you need to have “lots of good ideas”.

The meeting included an open discussion about how to improve the NCTJ in which the board showed a preview of its new website to be launched at the end of this month.

The new site is aimed at being more user-friendly and will also include a forum for student discussion and login areas for students and trainees.

Other future changes will also be seen in the transformation of the NCTJ into a multimedia qualification. Chief executive of the NCTJ, Joanna Butcher said: “The debate about what the core skills should be for multimedia journalists will intensify this year.” Citing the group’s annual report, Butcher said a new board will be set up to develop a “multimedia accreditation strategy”, as previously reported by Journalism.co.uk from the Society of Editors conference in 2008.

The reaction from students and trainees to this news was mixed. While many students on the three-year courses supported the idea, others on the short-courses were worried that they would be “spread too thin”, adding that there was not enough time to learn it all.

There is already an option to include a video report in a portfolio and multimedia entries are encouraged on all courses.

Rebecca Hughes, Centre for Journalism, University of Kent. Twitter: @beccihughes.

Melvyn Bragg to receive Media Society Award for 2010

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Author, journalist and media personality, Melvyn Bragg, will receive the Media Society Award for 2010 to recognise his long-standing contributions to the industry.

With 20 published novels, 32 years at the helm of The South Bank Show and his present post at BBC Radio 4’s program, Our Time, under his belt – the accolade is a timely nod to Bragg’s influence across the industry.

Annually bestowed upon an individual for outstanding contributions to the media, Bragg finds himself in good company, with those in previous receipt of the award including Sir David Frost, Jon Snow, Sir Michael Parkinson and last year’s winner, Jeremy Paxman.

“Bragg’s contribution is immeasurable; his formidable journalistic skills have engaged our intellect across the broad sweep of all forms of art and culture. He is our chronicler of arts – a cornerstone of cultural programming and thought,” says president of the Media Society, Geraldine Sharpe Newton, in an announcement.

Bragg will receive his award on 3 June.

Future of News meet-ups in Brighton and Birmingham

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Inspired by the first UK Future of News meet-ups in London, a couple of regional nests have been formed, with the Brighton and West Midlands groups holding their inaugural meetings last night.

Tweets from the West Midlands (#fonwm) here

Meet-up group at this link

Round-up here: http://journallocal.co.uk/2010/02/09/future-of-news-west-midlands-round-up/

Tweets from Brighton (#bfong) here

Meet-up group at this link

My colleague Laura Oliver live-blogged some notes from our Brighton event, which featured the Argus online editor, Jo Wadsworth and the Guardian’s software architect, Simon Willison.

Willison, who was the lead developer for the Guardian’s crowd-sourced MPs’ expenses projects, talked about the ups and downs of user-driven information gathering; and about his latest collaborative launch, Wildlifenearyou.com, a project that collects users’ animal photographs for an online wildlife mapping project. Users can rank and identify photographs, building their site profiles. The feature allowing users to pick their favourite picture of two (for example, what’s your favourite meerkat?), accumulated more than 5,000 votes within a few hours.

As Laura notes, a specific version of Wildlifenearyou.com, Owlsnearyou.com launched just a few weeks ago. Getting the site some extra coverage, Owlsnearyou cannily “piggybacked” on the Superbowl hashtag on Twitter by creating “Superb Owl Day”… Geddit?

Willison also told the group about OpenStreetMap, the first free, wiki-style, editable map of the whole world. He said that the project has become adept at responding to crises.

OpenStreetMap was given some high resolution photographs of Haiti, when the earthquake occurred, and the team traced them to create the best digital map of Haiti available. It has become the default map for rescue teams, Willison added.

Read Laura’s full post at this link…

Dhiren Katwa: ‘Current BBC Asian Network model promotes segregation’

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Dhiren Katwa, senior news editor at Asian Voice, spoke at the Coventry Conversations series on Thursday about the possibility of the BBC’s Asian Network being scrapped in the face of strategic cuts. He said Vijay Sharma, head of the Asian Network, has been “in hiding” over the current situation.

The Asian Network’s audience fell by 15 per cent to 357,000 in the third quarter of last year, and is expected to struggle for survival after director-general Mark Thompson’s forthcoming strategic review of BBC programming.

Katwa, a member of the Equality Council of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said he thought it would be a shame for the Asian Network to go, but added that he didn’t believe the BBC should be specifically broadcasting to minority groups. He told the audience that “with the Asian Network working within a silo, it’s promoting or contributing to segregation rather than integration”. He said that the solution is to embed minority targeted elements of the BBC more firmly within the corporation.

When asked about the network’s fall in ratings, Katwa said commercial competitors such as Sunrise Radio had contributed to the network’s struggle to reach it’s young target audience, but put its current problems largely down to “a lot of internal issues”.

Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, told the House of Lords Communications Committee on Wednesday that the idea of one network serving the UK’s entire Asian community wasn’t the right way to represent such a large and diverse audience.

Katwa echoed her assessment in his talk, and suggested that “the BBC Asian Network needs to be embedded within the BBC as a corporation with more faces from black and Asian backgrounds.”

Sharing Katwa’s view, broadcast journalism lecturer and founder of Coventry Conversations John Mair added: “There is no role for something separate or segregated, it should just be part of the mainstream. Not ‘now Radio Four’s Asian hour’, every hour should be Asian hour”.

Katwa said at the talk that his opinions were his own and did not necessarily reflect the views of Asian Voice.

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