Tag Archives: economics editor

Gillian Tett at the Frontline Club: tonight 7.30pm GMT

1 Reply

This will be good. From the Frontline Club blog:

‘The credit crisis, financial journalism and scaremongering’ with Financial Times Assistant editor and journalist of the year Gillian Tett at the Frontline Club tonight. Gillian will be in discussion with BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders.

“When she picked up her prize for journalist of the year at the British Press Awards recently, the Financial Times’ Gillian Tett claimed the accolade was a vindication for ‘the geeks’ and ‘anoraks’.  The assistant editor of the Financial Times has been documenting the rise of credit derivatives banking since she was appointed in 2005 to cover the the rather unglamorous capital markets patch. But it was only after the full consequences of the risks bankers had been taking became so catastrophically apparent that Gillian Tett was promoted from ‘geek’ to luminary, regularly making appearances on TV and radio.”

Watch live here at 7.30pm GMT:

Richard Sambrook: John Birt criticised ‘He Said She Said’ formula 34 years ago

Leave a reply

Prompted by Jay Rosen’s recent critique of the ‘He Said She Said’ news formula, Richard Sambrook, director of BBC Global News, offers his own take on balanced reporting on his blog.

Sambrook ‘agrees with the thrust’ of Rosen’s argument, ‘but was left uncomfortable’ for several reasons, outlined in his post.

Most interesting, is Sambrook’s reference to a critique against the formulaic approach of British TV news, made 34 years ago by John Birt, later director-general of the BBC, and Peter Jay, a Times columnist and later economics editor of the BBC. They called it ‘bias against understanding’. Birt’s argument shaped his later strategy:

“In the late 80s, instead of interviewing those caught up in the news, specialist correspondents would be interviewed to explain the significance of an event or a report. It was highly successful, building the reputation of BBC News as a quality, intelligent, authoritative service. It’s a model which persists to this day.”

Richard Sambrook’s full post at this link…

BBC’s Paul Mason: Newsrooms offer journalists peer review that ‘pyjama bloggers’ can’t replicate

8 Replies

Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC’s Newsnight and National Union of Journalist (NUJ) rep for the programme, gives some fairly frank thoughts to the union on journalism, its future and its relation to new technologies and forms of publishing in the video interview below.

“What you have to do is to try and define what the skilled class of professional journalist actually does in that world. What makes us worth employing? We are the ones who provide accurate information: we’re not going to disappear,” he says, before asking how many bloggers can be described as authoritative.


Discussing recent journalism job losses, Mason argues that this is not the result of just the recession, but has been caused by ‘deskilling and the rise of new technology’.

Accuracy, authority and the peer review mechanism of the newsroom will safeguard journalism’s future, he adds.

“A newsroom is a real-time peer review system – that bloggers in their pyjamas can’t replicate.”

Is this really the case? Mason’s views have sparked some reactions among journo-bloggers, including Kevin Anderson and Patrick Smith:

Your thoughts please.