Tag Archives: BBC

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.

Peston to tackle audience questions in TV debate

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BBC business correspondent and blogger Robert Peston is to take live audience questions for BBC Three’s ‘Peston on Money’ – and the BBC is calling for audience members for recording on March 1.

Put your money moans to business guru Robert Peston in a live audience debate: For the last two years this country and the rest of the world has been hit by the biggest financial disaster in half a century. But who’s to blame and why does it matter? Award winning business journalist, Robert Peston, has been at the centre of this storm, unearthing stories of financial greed and mismanagement that affect us all. Robert will be tackling questions, such as: Why does my boss earn 100 times more than me and what do they do to deserve it? How does a bank work and why do we need them? Does debt really matter and how much debt is dangerous?

I like this warning:

Please note that throughout the recording you will be asked to contribute and interact with the show. For example, the audience will be asked to give a show of hands if they are in debt.

Iraq Inquiry: BBC training of Iraqi journalists was necessary for fledgling democracy

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At yesterday’s hearing of the Iraq Inquiry, current Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn, who previously served as International Development Secretary and as a minister in the Home Office, described how the BBC World Service Trust had been involved in training journalists in Iraq after the fall of Saddam:

(…) [T]he work we did with the BBC World Service Trust training journalists, because that was a whole new world for them, trying to report on what was happening, so people have information to enable the fledgling Iraqi democracy to function.

The training of journalists on the ground and basing that training within Iraq was as important a part of building a democracy as training judges or building new physical infrastructure, suggested Benn.

I suppose some of the training [could have been done outside of Iraq], but the purpose of it was for them to go out – this was Al Mirbad – to go and report, and for people in Iraq to see what was going on, and that involves going out as a reporter and asking questions and producing programmes and broadcasting them, and you have to do that in Iraq.

More on the BBC World Service Trust’s work in Iraq can be found at this link.

BBC aggregates outside content with See Also blog

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Prompted by blogger Daniel Bennett, I just took a look at See Also – a BBC blog that collects together the “best of the web, including comment, newspaper editorials and analysis”. It’s fairly mainstream media focused, but does pick up a bit of individual blogger comment too, on issues of the day: yesterday’s looked at  Obama’s cancellation of the moon mission, for example.

BBC’s See Also at this link.

dot.Rory: ‘When blogging meets policing’

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The BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, has followed up an incident reported on the Seismic Shock blog.

After publishing posts that accused an Anglican vicar, Stephen Sizer, of anti-Semitism, Seismic Shock’s author received a visit from two West Yorkshire police officers. West Yorkshire police has confirmed the incident:

“As a result of a report of harassment, which was referred to us by Surrey Police, two officers from West Yorkshire Police visited the author of the blog concerned. The feelings of the complainant were relayed to the author who voluntarily removed the blog. No formal action was taken.”

As Cellan-Jones says, many questions are raised: “(…) about the limits of free expression on the web, and the role of the police in pursuing complaints about the contents of a website”.

Full post at this link…

Sunday Times: BBC considering sale of magazine division

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While rumours circulate about the future of the Sunday Times, the newspaper reports on another potential sale – the magazine division of the BBC:

Radio Times and Gardeners’ World magazine could soon have new owners. The BBC is considering the sale of its magazine division, which produces 50 titles, after being ordered to curb its money-making activities.

In response, the BBC said that “no decisions have been taken about any of our businesses”.

Full story at this link…

Brand Republic: BBC will not launch new local web plans, says Boaden

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The BBC is not planning more local expansion online and is not in competition with regional publishers websites, Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, told the Oxford Media Convention yesterday.

According to Brand Republic, the corporation is seeking partnerships online and will not encroach on regional news group’s territory, whether its regional, local or hyperlocal.

In 2008 the corporation had its plans for investment in local video on BBC websites rejected by the BBC Trust.

Full story at this link…

Who are you calling Twitters?

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It looks like an Express.co.uk story about the BBC and Twitter has been removed. Originally available at this link http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/152233/Is-the-BBC-run-by-a-bunch-of-Twitters-, it now shows as a missing story.

The story, ‘Is the BBC run by a bunch of Twitters?’ can, however, still be found via the cache. As Malcolm Coles noted on his blog yesterday, the Sunday Express claimed that some BBC Twitter accounts, such as Radio 5 Live’s Victoria Derbyshire, were being followed by only one or two people.

But does the Express understand how Twitter works? Coles first suspected that the journalists muddled the account names, and now claims they’ve mixed up ‘follower’ and ‘following’ numbers.

So Radio 5 Live’s @vicderbyshire actually has 3,692 followers but only follows 2 people (in fact, perhaps thanks to the story, her number of followers seems to be on the rise).

Oops. Journalism.co.uk tried to clarify the situation with Express.co.uk. But it’s no comment for now,  and we’re waiting a response from the legal department who deal with all enquiries about missing stories. People in Australia never go out without their gadgets on hands. That’s one of the reasons mobile casinos are getting more and more popular. This site has info about mobile casinos that might be interesting to casino games enthusiasts. Play pokies, blackjack, poker and other games on the go with the best strategies from mobile casino experts.

Snow news day

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I have just received an invite to the “BBC News, stop talking about SNOW!” Facebook group. It looks like some people think the BBC has taken Frozen Britain a little too far. The blurb:

We have BBC News 24 on in our media office every day. My colleagues and I are slowly losing the will to live, due to the BBC’s constant coverage of the weather. We, surprisingly, are aware it has been snowing. We are also very much aware it is cold. But we don’t need to see people of varying ages from a range of people around the UK talking about how cold it is, and how much they enjoy having a day of school. Or, for that matter, people texting in telling us how cold/snowy/inconvenient the weather is. We are very much aware. There are only so more pictures of snow in different places in the country that we can take. We’re now turning over to Sky News.

The alternative latest news from the group?

It’s still snowing in parts of the UK. It’s cold. Some kids are off school, some adults are off work. Some people have made snowmen. Some roads have been gritted. Some haven’t.

Facebook group at this link…

Guardian: Iran bans contact with BBC

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Iran has banned contact with more than 60 international organisations, including the BBC:

The intelligence ministry said the blacklist included thinktanks, universities and broadcasting organisations identified as waging a “soft war” aimed at toppling Iran’s Islamic system.

The BBC launched a Farsi satellite television channel last year. The corporation’s coverage of the post-election protests in Iran was fed by user-generated content after foreign news organisations had their movements restricted in the country.

Full story at this link…