Tag Archives: Jon Snow

Jon Snow’s Cudlipp lecture: ‘Twitter leads the information thirsty to water’

Toni Knevitt, London College of Communication

Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow gave the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture last night, in which he gave a powerful speech on what he views as the advent of “journalism’s golden age”.

Snow has published the full version of his speech on his Snowblog, but here are some highlights from the lecture.

Much of his speech discussed how new technology and real-time news across platforms has an impact on the work of journalists:

Contrast therefore my first reporting from Uganda in 1976 and my most recent foreign assignment in 2011.

That first report on the ground in Uganda dealt with the horror of Amin, it was graphic, and because I was not constrained by immediate “live” deadlines and the rest, I had time to hang about to try to grab an interview with the tyrant: that’s the upside. But I had little mechanism for developing any sense of how the story connected with the outside world – the UN, Westminster and the rest.

… Contrast that with my last major foreign assignment in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where I tweeted, blogged, reported, fed the bird, and then anchored that night’s Channel 4 News live from just outside the Square. Mind you, with the pressures of time, some of the fun has gone out of it all.

For journalists, he said, the “liberation” of the media gives way to a new “golden age of journalism”:

We are in the age of answer back, better still we are in the age in which “we the people” have their greatest opportunity ever to influence the information agenda … But above all we are in the age of more. More potential to get it right, to get it fast, to get it in depth. We have that illusive entity “the level playing field”, we can compete on equal terms and yet be the best.

He also passed comment on some of the biggest issues facing the news industry today, from regulation to the phone hacking scandal:

I think it is absolutely right that there is a regulator that people can go to. Who are we to be above the opportunity for people to review what we’ve done? Furthermore I do not want to find my own editors somewhere in the mix. I want an objective regulator.

… Of course, papers and TV are entirely different beasts, and they work in entirely different ways, but I see no reason why print journalism wouldn’t benefit from a credible regulator in the same way TV has.

And not forgetting the Leveson inquiry, which is currently looking at the culture and ethics of the press:

Leveson should recommend many of the people and institutions that have been before him find a way of allowing their staff to get stuck into the real world, it will vastly improve and deepen their journalism. We journalists are not a breed a part – we must be of the world we report. The hacking scandal reveals an echelon of hacks who removed themselves from the world in which the rest of us live – they took some weird pleasure in urinating on our world.

But finally, he called for journalists to be given more time and space wherever possible:

The speed and pace of what all of us is doing is starving, television journalists in particular, of the opportunity to develop the stature and presence of our forebears.

These were people who had days in which to prepare their stories, dominated a tiny handful of channels, and became iconic figures in the medium. It is much, much harder for journalists today to ascend the same ladder and preside with their kind of authority and we need to afford talent the time, the space and the working experience to develop the authority that our medium depends upon.

Jon Snow receives degree 40 years after expulsion

Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow returned to university today to receive a degree 40 years after being expelled.

Snow studied law at Liverpool University from 1968 to 1970, but was kicked out after a rooftop protest against the university’s investment in South Africa during apartheid.

The protesting students demanded the removal of Liverpool University’s chancellor Lord Salisbury who they accused of sympathising with white regimes in South Africa and what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

Snow – who went straight from volunteering in Africa to university – was one of hundreds of students who occupied the institution’s Senate House.

The infamous newsreader says that he is glad he was expelled, as it prevented him from becoming an “extremely mediocre and wonky” lawyer.

He wrote today:

To this day, I have not had a degree. I was studying law. Academe had not been an easy path for me, but my studies were going well. Whilst in some ways eviction served me well in that I didn’t become a fifth-rate lawyer, in other ways it left me questioning whether I would ever have got the degree.

But today Liverpool University and I buried the hatchet. I had the honour of hearing the pro vice-chancellor read out a eulogy about me – or rather, about a man I didn’t really seem to recognise, some character who reported for Channel 4.

From henceforth, no more ‘Mr’ Snow. I am Dr Snow, honorary Doctor of Laws (Liverpool University). Coming back on the train, I had relished the experience. But Somalia beckoned, the Murdoch mayhem beckoned. Another day, another dollar.

The full post is at this link.

Channel 4 News extended to cover Coulson resignation and Blair testimony

Tonight’s Channel 4 News will be extended to an hour following the resignation of David Cameron’s director of communications Andy Coulson and Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq Inquiry.

Coulson resigned over continued coverage of phone-hacking that took place under his editorship of the News of the World.

Presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy announced the extended bulletin on Twitter, following a previous comment that there was to be “an unusually exciting Friday night’s channel 4 news ahead”.

Meanwhile, following Coulson’s resignation, Guru-Murthy’s co-presenter Jon Snow alleged that he believes his own phone was hacked with the involvement of another, unamed, newspaper.

‘Keep your cool, but lose it if you must’: Jon Snow’s advice for journalists

Jon Snow has presented Channel 4 News for 21 years.He has worked in television news for more than three decades, always at ITN, but he is also the Visiting Professor of Broadcast Journalism at Coventry University.

What he does not know about making TV news and Current Affairs probably is not worth knowing and late last week, Snow passed on the wisdom of his years to young wannabe hacks at Coventry University.

Five golden pieces of advice from the master:

1. Stay sober: a lesson he learned in his early days at ITN then awash, in his view, with alcohol.

The truth is you had to be pissed to get on in television. People drank vast quantities whilst they were working. We had a bar inside the studios and people would put out the lunchtime news and go and have a few pints and then go back to work completely squiffy.

His road to Damascus came one day when after the early evening news, the editor at the time and next most senior person invited him for a drink:

I went across the road to the wine bar, sat down with them and after about an hour, realising I still had to do a piece for News at 10, there were six empty wine bottles on the table and only three of us, so I realised I must have drunk at least one-and-a-half of them. I was now squiffy in any case. After a time I wanted to go to loo, so I went downstairs to the gents and I was unsteady on my feet and lurched into the cistern. It detached itself from the wall and crashed into the throne and then exploded in an eruption of water cascading everywhere. I made a very fast retreat, shut the door, saw the water pouring out underneath. I saw these two guys sitting there and thought ‘they’re going to drown’ and I said ‘chaps, got to get back and get my piece on for news at 10’. I sat there watching out of the window thinking this was the end of my career.

It wasn’t. Snow has not really drunk on the job since.

2. Keep it simple: Jon explained how he had appreciated reporting from Haiti after the earthquake had struck in January, because it went back to his roots – finding stories and telling them, simply, to viewers using all original footage and through this simplicity touching the hearts of millions. He pointed to the fact that £100 million was given by the British public to Haiti Relief partly as a result of the messages from broadcasters. Snow is planning to return soon to Haiti to follow up on the stories.

3. Expect the unexpected: Tuesday 11 May was a moment of “complete magic” for Snow, as Channel 4 News went live outside Downing Street to broadcast the resignation of Gordon Brown.

At 18 minutes past seven the car comes out and we have no idea where things are going. Normally the great thing about anchoring any programme is that you’ve got this thing [an earpiece], the lifeline, the umbilical chord to the producer, and they’re saying, ‘Jon he’s going to the Palace’. But they didn’t – I was hearing nothing but silence. I suddenly realised I was on a one-to-one adventure with the viewer. The viewer and I were equally ignorant about what was going to go on; it was a sublime moment of total equality when we were both peering at this helicopter image and the car was turning right and turning left.

4. Have a point, but keep away from pressure: Snow said that TV had made the 2010 election with the Prime Ministerial debates dominating the agenda and the tabloid press having to follow that. The Murdoch-owned press fared especially badly, he said: “The tabloid press had a terrible, terrible election. They got it seriously wrong. Murdoch was beaten, in a fantastic moment in history Murdoch, decided to try and elect David Cameron and the Sun went out to bat for him. We now have the first government for a long time not elected with Rupert Murdoch’s support.”

Then when questioned about the success of Channel 4’s comedy election night coverage and what that says about the British public, Snow said: “It tells you that people are real who necessarily wants to watch drab results with people as old as the ark coming out and saying ‘bark, bark’.”

5. Keep your cool, but lose it if you must: Snow was very sympathetic to Sky News Political editor Adam Boulton about his outburst on air to Alastair Campbell on 10 May.

It’s no good asking, ‘should anybody have lost anything?’ He lost it, so what? Good God, the world would be duller place if people didn’t lose it (…) what’s misconduct? If he’s guilty of it I’ll have to go to the hang man’s noose.

Snow said he saw Boulton’s outburst as a possible result of pressures building up on Boulton and Sky News to move along the road to a more Fox News’ style approach.

Simple, to the point, straightforward – but that’s Jon Snow for you.

Jon Snow: ‘Joy is it to be allowed the role of reporter in these amazing times’

Yesterday we linked to an article by the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow on the possibilities of political blogging, and today we spotted that Channel 4 News’ Jon Snow is also waxing lyrical about the beauty of election blogging:

Joy is it to be alive and to be allowed the role of reporter in these amazing times. May Snowblog long continue to be somewhere where, whatever our prejudices, we can share this remarkable moment in the affairs of man and woman.

Full post at this link…

(via @samshepherd / http://mayweed.tumblr.com/)

Guardian launches Student Media Awards 2010

The Guardian Student Media Awards are now open to entries. The 2010 competition features a new category designed to recognise developments in digital journalism and the rise of social media. Blogs and Twitter feeds are now eligible for the ‘Digital Journalist of the Year’ category, meaning students unconnected to student newspapers or radio stations can enter.

The judging panel includes Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow, and NME editor Krissi Murison. Winners each receive a month’s work experience at the Guardian.

The six categories this year are:

Publication of the Year
Reporter of the Year
Writer of the Year
Photographer of the Year
Digital Journalist of the Year in association with NME.com
Broadcast Journalist of the Year

Jon Snow: ‘Being a good journalist takes your whole life’

Channel 4 News front man Jon Snow spoke about the dramatically changing world of journalism that’s shaped his career and how to keep up in his inaugural lecture as visiting professor at Coventry University this week.

“We’re living in a technological revolution which outstrips any industrial revolution before it,” he began – a point that underpinned his lecture, as he led the audience through the milestones of his own career and the effect of technological advances on modern journalism.

The lecture focused on the power of TV throughout the key moments of the last century. Speaking about coverage of the Gulf War, Snow said: “You are watching a shell being fired at the moment it’s being fired and seeing people die the moment at which they die.”

He also spoke about the influence of television on the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’ in Europe, as the Berlin Wall came down: “Because of the power of television we had a democratic revolution without a drop of blood being spilt.”

Throughout the talk Snow referred to the extent to which technology has revolutionised international reporting from decade to decade. He spoke about the difficulty of every report from transporting equipment to sending the films through less than reliable channels: “It was a mammoth operation and yet it was called lightweight.”

The difficulty of reporting from Africa was discussed, from his early experiences of meeting Idi Amin to the problems modern journalism faces in the region: “Africa is still very much uncovered, because the communication infrastructure isn’t there.”

Snow went on to talk about the influence of budgeting within the media, suggesting that the cost of acquiring photos and the choices that are made give us a ‘skewed view of the world we live in’.

As the lecture entered the 21st-century, Snow considered the influence of the internet on journalism in particular the abundance of ‘free news’. He maintained that content is king and, weighing in on the paid content debate, said, “People will pay for high quality.”

Journalists need to be inquisitive and driven to be successful, said Snow, and to the aspiring journalists from local colleges and universities gathered, he gave one important piece of advice: “Being a good journalist takes your whole life.”

Paperhouse: Jon Snow is pro-privacy law – ‘tabloids are going out of business anyway’

Journalism.co.uk had this on its to-do list for this morning, but Sarah Ditum got there first and picked up Jon Snow’s comments from his reverse-role interview with Ann Widdecombe in the Guardian magazine on Saturday.

The Channel 4 News journalist – and Widdecombe reckons this is her scoop – would welcome a privacy act and says it wouldn’t affect the tabloids too much – ‘they’re going out of business anyway’.

AW Would you welcome a privacy act, Jon Snow?

JS I would welcome a privacy act, yes.

AW We have the scoop! Jon Snow says, ‘Bring in a privacy act.’

JS I believe that the tabloid media, in particular, have so intruded into the private lives of public people that they have brought it upon themselves that there should indeed be a privacy act.

AW I think that is absolutely right. I think…

JS Damn me, Ann Widdecombe, I didn’t think we’d have to sit here and agree.

AW And I consider that quite a coup, to have got Jon Snow to agree with me that we need to curtail the rights of the media. Thank you, Jon Snow…

JS I am totally opposed to, and would go to the gallows to prevent, censorship. But needless intrusion into the private lives of anybody…

AW Let me ask you this. Let’s imagine a politician – I don’t care whether it’s male or female, Jon, but let’s imagine a politician. You’ve got a politician who has never made any pronouncements about morality, who has a mistress. Is that the public’s business?

JS Not at all.

AW You’ve just put a lot of the tabloids out of business.

JS Well, they’re going out of business anyway, so that won’t mean much…

Paperhouse post at this link…

MediaGuardian: Channel 4 axing News at Noon and More4 News

Channel 4 is cutting its lunchtime news bulletin and More4 News ‘as part of a cost-cutting move that will place a number of journalism jobs under threat,’ the Guardian reports.

“Staff at ITN, which produces Channel 4’s news output, were told of the decision at lunchtime today. Channel 4 said the aim of the cuts was to protect the flagship 7pm bulletin, presented by Jon Snow.”

Full story at this link…

Benjamin Cohen, technology correspondent for Channel 4 News, tweeted:

“Grim staff meeting. News at Noon and More4 News cancelled. Wonder how it will be reflected on-screen tonight (…)”

Then:

“Tweet that Channel4 News at Noon and More4 News are axed spread like wildfire. Very tough story to cover I assume.”

Update: A spokesperson for ITN told Journalism.co.uk:

“We are immensely proud of the high quality programming produced for Channel 4. Whilst we are very disappointed that the financial challenges facing the channel have left them with no option but to reduce budgets, we’ve worked in partnership with Channel 4 to identify savings which will not jeopardise the quality and integrity of the flagship Channel 4 News bulletin. We look forward to continuing to provide the programme for many years to come.”

BeatBlogging.Org: ‘UK news regulation stands in the way of newsroom convergence’

I’ve provided a guest post for BeatBlogging.org, the US-based site that looks at how to use social networks and other web tools to improve beat reporting. Using examples from various Journalism.co.uk pieces, I argue that it is very difficult to look towards coverged newsroom, under the hybrid regulatory systems with which we operate as UK-based publishers. Thoughts welcomed.

Read it in full over at the site. Here’s an extract:

We talk about converging newsrooms of the future that transcend boundaries between online, print and broadcast, but at a very fundamental level that process is impossible in the United Kingdom.

Martin Belam, information architect for the Guardian, recently emphasized that point in an interview with Journalism.co.uk:

“In a converged media landscape, it seems odd that [BBC’s] Robert Peston’s blog is regulated by the BBC Trust, [Channel 4’s] Jon Snow’s blog is regulated by Ofcom, and [the Guardian’s] Roy Greenslade’s blog is regulated by the PCC.”

Now, Martin was actually wrong on the Jon Snow point: Ofcom does not regulate any television Web sites at all. That is to say, the brands which must adhere to a strict code for television content are completely unregulated online. Ofcom advises consumers to make complaints about online content to their Internet service provider.

The BBC Trust regulates the BBC online; the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) regulates newspapers, magazines and their online content.

And Stephen Fry, who – at the time of writing — is nearing half a million followers on Twitter? Or Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines) who has a loyal readership to rival most newspaper commentators? Well, they govern themselves – unless the law gets involved.

When the traditional media sectors go online, they’re regulated by their various bodies, and the ‘online-onlys’ only have the courts to worry about. Press publications have a less strict code than broadcasters, but online, broadcasters have more freedom than the press – though they don’t seem to be exercising it.

In a nutshell, a financial commentator from a newspaper has greater freedom than a financial commentator from a broadcaster, and an independent online-only financial commentator has the greatest freedom of all.

What happens when a bank crashes? Channel 4 and ITV can theoretically report how they like – online. The BBC must always answer to the BBC Trust. The newspapers must comply with the PCC code. Martin Lewis, of the MoneySaving Expert can, if he so chooses, be a law unto himself.

Same news and it’s all online but in very different guises. We might think people know the difference, but do they?

Full post at this link…