A More4 News feature on how citizen journalism is changing the news scene, in light of recent events, namely the G20 protests and the Damian McBride affair.
Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, is interviewed: The importance is connecting the citizen with the journalist, he says. “(…)These stories would never have the impact if they had just stayed on the blogosphere…”
A call by the More4News team for Twitterers to meet outside the office to participate in the feature didn’t bear fruit, however.
A take on the Polis paper from the States. The Columbia Journalism Review’s Dean Starkman says that the Polis’ ‘What is Financial Journalism For?’ report addresses ‘one of those big, “dumb” questions’ that he ‘finds so valuable.’
“Those kinds of questions don’t get asked much on this side of the pond. That’s too bad. Even the subject of business media’s performance in advance of the current crisis seems to be something of a taboo.
“The scant attention the subject has received has been either the once-over-lightly treatment, a la Howard Kurtz, and or an ‘all-clear’ for the business press from our cousins over at the American Journalism Review.”
The Shadow Culture Secretary, Tory MP Jeremy Hunt, today made a keynote policy speech on the subject of public service broadcasting, at a Polis event. He talked about opposing BBC local plans, in a wide-ranging speech. You can download Hunt’s full speech here.
@bowbrick on Twitter reported that: “Nothing radical in Hunt’s analysis. Presumably a great relief to the BBC”.
Of most interest seems to be Hunt’s take on the story du jour (economic downturn returning to our screens next week): Brand, Ross and the BBC.
Over at Polis Director, Charlie Beckett’s blog, we read:
“Hunt was careful not to call for anyone to be sacked. He believes that politicians shouldn’t go around trying to get private individuals fired. But he was scathing about the BBC response to the incident and the outrage it has provoked.
Hunt said this was not risky comedy, it was ‘offensive, juvenile behavour’. But what worried him was that the BBC’s slow and limited public response indicates that “the BBC doesn’t understand the huge influence the stars they employ have on the public”.”