The BBC will launch an iPlayer app for Apple’s iPad this Thursday, the corporation’s interactive operations manager Geoff Marshall has announced on Twitter.
Users can browse the catch-up TV and radio service listings using a 3G connection but will need WiFi to watch or listen to programmes.
It will initially be limited to the UK, although the BBC is working on a subscription-based international version for the iPad that is expected to launch this summer.
As the country’s excitement about an impending royal wedding builds to its inevitable fever pitch, BBC journalists must report, not celebrate, says Republic executive officer Graham Smith.
Republic is a group which campaigns for a democratic alternative to the monarchy.
It has long been felt by a great many people in this country – not just republicans – that when it comes to the monarchy and coverage of the royal family the Corporation fails in its duty to remain balanced and impartial. That’s why Republic has this week written to David Jordan, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy, to ask for a meeting to discuss the BBC’s coverage of the monarchy in general and the royal wedding in particular.
The BBC apologised today for not putting phone-hacking related allegations against the News of the World, reported by the BBC this morning, to the tabloid.
The broadcaster claimed yesterday to have obtained legal documents which suggest hacking by News of the World journalists may have been going on as recently as last year.
The News of the World earlier today accused the BBC of running a “misleading report”.
We have carried out an extensive investigation led by a team of independent forensic specialists and we have found no evidence whatsoever to support this allegation.
The civil litigation is ongoing, as is the internal investigation and until both are concluded it would be inappropriate to comment further. However we are disappointed the BBC chose to lead with this misleading report without giving the News of the World an opportunity to respond.
In a statement, the BBC said it stands by the story but “acknowledge that we should have put the allegations directly to the News of The World and have apologised to them for not doing so”.
We have carried their subsequent press statement on all outlets covering the story.
Our reporter Rachel McAthy is at the protests outside the BBC World Service offices this afternoon. Members of the National Union of Journalists are demonstrating against budget cuts announced today at the service which will result in the loss of 650 jobs as well as the closure of numerous language services.
Listen below to Mike Workman, the chair of the BBC World Service branch of the NUJ, speaking at the protest:
More to follow…
The latest edition of the ‘Inside BBC Journalism’ series, on the BBC College of Journalism website, looks at the role of journalists working with user generated content (UGC).
Trushar Barot, a senior broadcast journalist in the UGC Hub in the BBC’s London newsroom says he thinks the future of journalism is going to be much more about journalists who work with social media becoming trusted editors of UGC, he says.
We are the ones that have the skills, hopefully, to be able to analyse what’s coming in, give it the context and then report that context.
So a lot of the work we do at the hub in the newsroom is not just about taking content, getting permission and putting it on air, but it’s about trying to authenticate it as well.
BBC investigative reporter Samantha Poling has spent several months secretly filming the UK’s counterfeit tobacco trade for a documentary due to be aired tonight.
A clip from the documentary shows Poling and her camera crew being threatened by tobacco dealers with a metal pole in Glasgow’s Barras Market.
Investigating criminal gangs like these ones always carry risks. And these are risks you have to add up.
Are they worth taking in order to get the footage, to get the story told?
After looking back at the hours of evidence I had recorded, and knowing the level of criminality we had discovered, which affects each and every one of us, I knew the answer.
BBC Scotland Investigates: Smoking and the Bandits will be broadcast tonight at 7.30pm BBC One Scotland. It will be available on the BBC iPlayer for a week afterwards. In the future we will explore the new regulations for vaping in public places. The article will discuss how these regulations may affect your routine and what you need to know about them. Samantha Poling has previously investigated new vape regulations and this time she’s going to give us her opinion on if it’s good or bad news.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will tomorrow announce that hundreds more organisations could be made subject to Freedom of Information laws, the BBC reports today.
According to the broadcaster, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the university admissions service UCAS are two bodies to be included.
Mr Clegg will pledge to “restore British freedoms” in his speech on Friday, as part of “our wider project to resettle the relationship between people and government”.
He will say: “Free citizens must be able to hold big institutions and powerful individuals to account – and not only the government. There are a whole range of organisations who benefit from public money and whose activities have a profound impact on the public good.
The Ministry of Justice had previously confirmed to Journalism.co.uk that it was looking at Freedom of Information Act 2000 “to see where we can further increase the openness and transparency of public affairs whilst ensuring that sensitive information is adequately protected”.
At the time the department said the next steps would be announced “in due course”.
OK, we know it’s quality not quantity that counts, but it’s still fascinating (to us at least) to learn which stories have attracted the most traffic over the course of a year.
Unsurprisingly, Wikileaks is prominent as was the televised leaders debate during the general election. And some old faithfuls continue to pull in traffic from jobseekers and ‘wannabe’ freelancers (this year that was probably mostly unemployed journalism graduates and recently ‘redundant’ journalists).
But stories about paywalls failed to even come close…
News:
Features:
Blog posts:
Source: Google Analytics
A collaborative project between the BBC’s video-on-demand team, online graphic designers, journalists, newsgathering reporters and the BBC News channel was launched on the BBC News website yesterday.
The special multimedia report, ‘Life with the Lancers’, follows a year of filming with four Army soldiers from the Queen’s Royal Lancers regiment.
They were given cameras to gather video-diary material, took stills as well, and talked to BBC correspondents at different stages during the year about their experiences. The Army’s combat camera team also provided material.
In a blog post discussing the report editor of the BBC News website Steve Herrmann said the aim was to understand what the daily experience of UK troops serving in Afghanistan “in more detail than headline news reports allow”.
An interview on the BBC News channel with Jody McIntyre, the student protestor who was allegedly pulled from his wheelchair during the student demonstrations, has received a “considerable” number of complaints, controller of the channel Kevin Bakhurst said on the BBC Editors blog yesterday.
In the post, Bakhurst said there has been a web campaign encouraging people to complain to the BBC about the interview with the “broad charge” being that presenter Ben Brown was too challenging. Bakhurst defended the interview, claiming that Brown “interviewed Mr McIntyre in the same way that we would have questioned any other interviewee in the same circumstances”.
In the interview, a copy of which is posted in the BBC blog, Brown questions McIntyre on why he has not yet complained, before asking him whether: he was rolling towards police in his wheelchair; provoking police; or if he was injured from the incident. (The quotes below are taken from part of the BBC video clip).
Brown: And you didn’t shout anything provocative or throw anything that would have induced the police to do that to you?
McIntyre: Do you really think a person with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair can pose a threat to a police officer who is armed with weapons?
Brown: But you do say that you’re a revolutionary.
McIntryre: That’s a word, that’s not a physical action that I have taken against a police officer. That’s a word that you’re quoting from a website. But I’m asking you, do you think I could have in any way, posed a physical threat from the seat of my wheelchair to an army of police officers armed with weapons. This whole line of argument is absolutely ludicrous because you’re blaming the victims of violence for that violence. In fact it reminds me a lot of the way the BBC report on the Palestinian conflict…
Brown: When are you going to make your complaint to the police then?
McIntyre: I will be making my complaint very shortly, in the near future.
Bakhurst says he is interested in hearing more from those who have complained, about why they object to the interview, as well as other views. His post has so far received more than 330 comments.