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How Westminster students covered last week’s Journalism in Crisis conference

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I got a peek behind the stage curtain last week, at the University of Westminster / British Journalism Review Journalism in Crisis conference (May 19/20). Geoffrey Davies, head of the Journalism and Mass Communications department, gave me a mini-guided tour of the equipment borrowed for the event – it allowed the live-streaming of the conference throughout; a real bonus for those at home or in the office.

Jump to video list here (includes: Mark Thompson / Nick Davies / Paul Lashmar / Boris Johnson and a host of academics and journalists from around the world)

The Journalism.co.uk beat means that we cover a fair few industry and academic conferences, and so we get to compare the technology efforts of the hosts themselves. While Twitter conversation didn’t flow as much as at some events (not necessarily a negative thing – see some discussion on that point at this link) the students’ own coverage certainly made use of their multimedia skills. I contacted a few of the students and lecturers afterwards to find out a few more specifics, and how they felt it went.

“We streamed to the web via a system we borrowed from NewTek Europe, but might purchase, called Tricaster. It’s a useful piece of equipment that is a television studio in a box,” explained Rob Benfield, a senior lecturer at the University, who produced the students’ coverage.

“In this case it allowed us to add graphics and captions downstream of a vision-mixer. It also stores all the material we shot in its copious memory and allowed us to store and stream student work, messages and advertising material of various sorts without resorting to other sources.

“Some of our third year undergraduates quickly mastered the technology which proved to be largely intuitive. We streamed for two solid days without interruption.”

Conference participants might also have seen students extremely diligently grabbing each speaker to ask them some questions on camera  (making Journalism.co.uk’s cornering of people a little bit more competitive). The videos are linked at the end of this post.

Marianne Bouchart, a second year at the University, blogged and tweeted (via @WestminComment) along with postgraduate student, Alberto Furlan.

“We all were delighted to get involved in such an important event,” Bourchart told Journalism.co.uk afterwards. “It was an incredible opportunity for us to practice our journalistic skills and gave to most of us a first taste of working in journalism. I couldn’t dream of anything better than to interview BBC director general Mark Thompson.

“We worked very hard on this project and we are all very happy it went on that well. My experience as an editor managing a team of journalists to cover the event was fantastic. We encountered a few scary moments, some panic attacks, but handled the whole thing quite brilliantly in the end – for inexperienced journalists. I can’t wait to be working with this team again.”

A sample of the Westminster students’ coverage:

If you missed the Journalism.co.uk own coverage, here’s a round-up:

Videos from the Westminster University students at this link. Interviewees included:

  • Paul Lashmar, Is investigative journalism in the UK dying or can a ‘Fifth Estate’ model revitalise it? An examination of whether the American subscription and donation models such as Pro Publica, Spot.US and Truthout are the way
  • Haiyan Wang, Investigative journalism and political power in China —A case study of three major newspapers’ investigative reporting over Chenzhou corruption between April 2006 and November 2008
  • Maria Edström, The workplace and education of journalists – myths and facts
  • Shan Wu, Can East Asia produce its own “Al-Jazeera”? Unravelling the challenges that face channel NewsAsia as a global media contra-flow
  • Yael .M. de Haan, Media under Fire: criticism and response in The Netherlands, 1987-2007
  • Esra Arsan, Hopelessly devoted? Turkish journalism students’ perception of the profession
  • Professor James Curran, ‘Journalism in Crisis,’ Goldsmiths College
  • Marina Ghersetti, Swedish journalists’ views on news values
  • Igor Vobic, Multimedia news of Slovenian print media organisations: Multimedia on news Websites of delo and žurnal media
  • Anya Luscombe, The future of radio journalism: the continued optimism in BBC Radio News
  • Tamara Witschge,The tyranny of technology? Examining the role of new media in news journalism
  • Juliette De Maeyer, Journalism practices in an online environment
  • Colette Brin, Journalism’s paradigm shifts: a model for understanding long-term change
  • Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Crisis equals crisis: How did the panic spread by the Greek media accelerate the economy crisis in the country?
  • Matthew Fraser, Why business journalism failed to see the coming economic crisis
  • Michael Bromley, Citizen journalism: ‘citizen’ or ‘journalism’ – or both?
  • Vincent Campbell, ‘Citizen Journalism’: A crisis in journalism studies?
  • Martin Nkosi Ndlela, The impact of technology on Norwegian print journalism
  • James S McLean, The future of journalism: Rethinking the basics
  • Mathieu Simonson, The Belgian governmental crisis through the eye of political blogging
  • Nick Davies, freelance journalist and author of Flat Earth News
  • Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
  • Jonathan Coad, partner at Swan Turton solicitors
  • Mark Thompson, BBC director-general

    • A multimedia-sourced MPs’ expenses interview from Sky News

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    Sky News sourced live questions via its website for Saturday’s (May 16) television debate with the Guardian associate editor, Michael White, and the former independent MP for Tatton, Martin Bell.

    Questions were posted on the Sky News website and the feature could be watched live via video streaming or on the news channel.

    Speaking ahead of the event, Phil Wardman, head of Sky News Online, said: “It’s a great way of harnessing a huge response from web-users. Hosting a simultaneous live debate online and on TV encourages viewer interactivity and gives them a forum to have their questions discussed.”

    Replay the Cover It Live chat at this link, and the video is embedded below:

    The Economist: Rows at Doha Centre for Media Freedom

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    From The Economist: ‘A freedom-promoting media centre is accused of going too far too fast’. The organisation’s head, founder and former secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Robert Ménard, is involved in rows with Qatari officials and critics.

    “When the Qataris asked Robert Ménard to run what they heralded as the world’s first press freedom centre, in Doha, their capital, they were probably asking for trouble. An intrepid Frenchman who had previously run a Paris-based lobby, Reporters Without Borders, Mr Ménard is famous for courting controversy. Last year he disrupted a torch-lighting ceremony in Greece that was meant to be a dignified prelude to the Olympic games in China. Later he scaled Notre Dame Cathedral and unfurled a protest banner as the torch was carried through Paris. Now, only months after becoming head of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, he is entangled in a row that may well be more bitter than anything he has experienced.”

    Full story at this link…

    Tomorrow: 12th Journalism Leaders’ Forum in Preston

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    Tomorrow, May 12, sees three events – the Digital Editors Network meeting, an exhibition on journalism and the 12th Journalism Leaders’ Forum – take place during the Journalism Leaders Programme’s Spring meeting.

    Mike Ward, head of the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at University of Central Lancashire, will chair the evening panel debate at the Journalism Leaders’ Forum, which takes place tomorrow between 18.00 and 19:15 in the Greenbank Lecture Theatre, University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

    Panellists including Richard Frediani, head of news at ITV Granada and Joanna Geary, web development editor at The Times, will discuss the future and changing shape of journalism.

    For more information on the forum email Debbie Williams or call 01772 894759.

    Follow news and updates from the events on @journalism_live and on our main news channel.

    Infuze: Training freelancers in cross-platform journalism

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    On Friday I was lucky enough to sneak inside the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLAN) Sandbox – a space dedicated to ‘digital media R&D’.

    I was there as part of the final day of Infuze – a joint training scheme from UCLAN and the BBC to retrain freelancers in multimedia journalism.

    It was the first time the six-week course had been run (Journalism.co.uk reported on its launch back in January) and while course leader Paul Egglestone said there were some improvements to be made, he was pleased how far all participants had come in a short time.

    Presentations from Ilicco Elia, head of mobile for Reuters, and videojournalist David Dunkley Gyimah gave all of us some food for thought, but mainly it was a great opportunity to chat with a group of freelancers facing the challenges of cross-platform journalism head on and hear about their experiences.

    Only fair then to give them (and some of their newly founded websites ) a shout out (in no particular order):

    Nazia Mogra – freelance broadcast journalist, now looking at the possibilities of newspaper video too.

    Sean Smith – former print freelancer who turned his hand to broadcast journalism during the course. Smith said he’d learned that the ‘new skill is adopting a mindset of not being intimidated by tech that’s meant to be intuitive’.

    Rumeana Jahangir – who is looking to develop a specialism on grassroots, community news and investigative work.

    Emma Blackburn – freelancer broadcast journalist turned videojournalist during her course placement at Times Online.

    Erisa Lluca     – who having now set up her own website is determined to keep it going beyond Infuze.

    Christina McDermott – or @misscay as shes known to her followers on Twitter, who discussed how she’s using social media as a freelancer (more from Christina on this later).

    Paul Gambaccini: BBC Radio 1 fails to recognise its ‘incredible responsibility’ by keeping Moyles in a job

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    Former BBC Radio 1 broadcaster, Paul Gambaccini, has once again emphasised the ethical implications of public broadcasting to an audience at Coventry University.

    ‘Broadcasters have an incredible responsibility,’ said Gambaccini, who currently presents on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4 and Classic FM. Back on the ‘Sack Chris Moyles’ beat, he said he was deeply offended by the current BBC 1 breakfast host’s comments about, and parody of, the singer Will Young.

    “Had I been the head of Radio 1 I would have sacked him for that, because I know everything that we do will be remembered by, and have an influence on, some people,” he said.

    Gambaccini first called for Moyles’ sacking in February, in his Oxford University lecture series, in his role as this year’s News International professor of broadcast media.

    It was the second time he repeated the message this week. Speaking at the Media Guardian Radio Reborn conference on Monday, he said that Moyles was ‘a bully who causes human suffering’.

    Gambaccini told that audience that young boys were beaten up in the playground for their sexuality. Moyles’ parody encouraged that, he claimed.

    He claimed that the BBC had failed to recognise its ‘incredible responsibility’. “Radio 1 hasn’t been aware of that [responsibility] or willing to act on it. Personally, I would have dropped Chris Moyles. For someone like Chris to throw the word gay around with abandonment, does, I’m afraid, show a sense of irresponsibility.”

    Moyles’ job has attracted attention of late: the Sun recently devoted a front page story to his alleged imminent ‘sacking’ from the pole position on Radio 1. Moyles responded with a rant on his show denying the story.

    Radio 1 deputy head, Ben Cooper, also questioned the veracity of the Sun story this week, in a somewhat lukewarm endorsement of Moyles and his show.

    John Mair is senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University and organiser of the Coventry Conversations, a series of events featuring high-profile media figures.

    Audio additions at Guardian.co.uk – The Business / video features for football podcast

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    More audio content is planned for Guardian.co.uk: this week saw the launch of The Business, a weekly finance and economics podcast. Next to follow will be regular video features off the back of the weekly football podcast, the Guardian’s head of audio, Matt Wells, told Journalism.co.uk.

    Jeff Jarvis’ monthly Media Talk USA launched last week: “The idea was this: all the major developments in global media, from digital innovations like Google and YouTube, to the crisis in print journalism, started in the US before spreading here. It makes sense to chronicle those developments in the same fashion as we follow the UK media scene with Media Talk,” Matt Wells told Journalism.co.uk.

    Media Talk has recently been nominated for best internet programme in the Sony radio awards, he added.

    NYTimes: MagCloud – the DIY magazine publishing service

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    MagCloud – a new web service developed by Hewlett-Packard – offers 20 cents-per-page magazine printing.

    “There are so many of the nichey, maybe weird-at-first communities, that can use this,” Andrew Bolwell, head of the MagCloud project at Hewlett-Packard, tells the New York Times.

    Full story at this link…