Tag Archives: senior lecturer

Twitterers claim victory over loaded Daily Mail gypsy poll

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daily_mail_gipsies

The UK-based Mail Online was forced to shut down one of its online polls yesterday after a concerted campaign by Twitter users and, Journalism.co.uk can reveal, UK-based psychologists, nearly brought their servers to a halt with an overwhelming ‘yes’ vote.

The poll, which asked the somewhat leading question “Should the NHS allow gipsies to jump the queue”, attracted ridicule from many within the Twitter community leading to, at one point a 96% vote in favour of the proposition.

Brighton-based senior lecturer in experimental psychology Dr Sam Hutton contacted Journalism.co.uk today to reveal that there was also an email campaign among UK-based psychologists who, as part of their jobs, take questionnaire neutrality seriously.

“One reason I think there were so many yes votes was because a psychologist got hold of it, and sent an email which quickly got copied to virtually every psychologist in the country, suggesting that we all vote yes as a way of protesting against such a ludicrously loaded question (psychologists care about questionnaire design),” Dr Hutton said.

“It clearly worked – it was actually 96% YES when I looked, but the server was struggling, and they have removed the poll completely now. A nice example of an online newspaper getting it wrong…”

This is the email that Dr Hutton, and psychologists all over the UK, received:

Here is an excellent example of how to phrase a neutral question from our friends at the Daily Mail… for all those interested in questionnaire design:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html?pollId=1011506

Please do vote “yes”

Angered Twitter users have now vowed to take their campaign to all of the Daily Mail’s online polls, taking the opposite stance to the expected response, given the Mail’s reputation for having a ‘Middle England’  readership and an editorial line against what it sees as the liberal establishment.

Footnote: Readers from outside the UK might be also interested to read about the Mail’s history – in the 1930s it openly backed the British Union of Fascists, aka the Blackshirts.

Whatever the platform, whatever the technology, it’s the stories, stupid!

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Students rise to a challenge if you trust them and give them one. This week they’ve learnt that stories matter. As previously reported on this blog, my students – aided by my colleague Andrew Noakes and me – have been providing live reports on cutoday.wordpress.com from the Play the Game Conference in Coventry. To say this has been a rip-roaring success is an understatement.

The product and its appeal has shocked even hardened hacks like me and my fellow lecturer Andrew. The students have seen and scaled an online Olympus.

Let the figures speak for themselves: over 5000 hits  in four days before the conference has ended; hits received from all over the world and overnight they go up 500; 100+ posts for the week – the daily record so far is 30, from a staff that never exceeded ten. All contributed by students, bar two lecturers giving help and advice.

We’ve provided print, audio and video and a link to a live-stream of some of the events. These lessons in live journalism have taken place in the blogosphere and are very transferable.

But, Content is King. Keep putting up real and interesting stories in all media. The audience will find them and find them very quickly. One video on drug testing had 50 hits in the first five minutes.

It’s the video and audio which sells, especially if original and exclusive. Keep refreshing the stories with new one and new angles. People will come back to find the new. Vary the texture of stories with length and embeds. Remember that you are writing for a net generation with the concentration span of a gnat.

Tease and trail the speakers, profile them, preview them and then report them. Remember what happens in the conference hall (sometimes the live audience was, er, all of 15) is just the front-end; your audience is out there on the blogosphere worldwide. Via the internet, you can reach and refresh parts that many thought could never be reached – and do so in seconds and in some style.

But the central lesson is the obvious one. Produce good readable and accessible journalism. Assemble motivated hacks manqué, get them working quickly and accurately, finding angles and writing the stories up well. But make sure they are subbed and checked – one student was surprised to learn that the Lord Mayor of Coventry had changed since last year… But the mantra should always be – as Jim White of the Daily Telegraph once put it to my students – ‘good copy delivered on time…’

Whatever the platform, whatever the technology, it’s the stories, stupid. No stories, no content, no audience. It’s a lesson we have all learned quickly.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He ran cutoday.wordpress.com at the 2009 Play the Game Conference. Most of the hard work was done by his colleague Andrew Noakes and a small group of students of journalism at Coventry University.

Coventry students reporting live from annual ‘Play the Game’ conference

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We teach them about real-life situations and real-life deadlines but how often do journalism students experience the adrenalin or buttock-tightening of knowing they are live-on-air on the internet? Not enough.

Nothing concentrates a man or woman’s mind so completely as the thought he or she will be cyber-hung in 10 minutes – to misquote Dr Johnson.

Coventry is hosting the annual ‘Play the Game’ Conference in the Cathedral and the University itself. Serious scholars and journalists from all over the world are here to discuss the big issues of sport-doping, cheating, match fixing and the whole underbelly of the modern business of sport. This is the sixth time they have scratched the sores that others might prefer to leave well alone.

Two hundred odd delegates in the very beautiful surroundings of Sir Basil Spence’s masterpiece, but why leave high quality thoughts for such a select audience?

We are not. Coventry journalism students (and one solitary LCC one) are reporting live or near live at Cutoday.wordpress.com. They attend all sessions, report them in print audio and (crossed fingers) video, right there in cyberspace. Want to hear or read David Goldblatt on the big round ball, or Declan Hill on match fixing? Then go to the site.

They’re learning to write against time: news, features, backgrounders, gossip, and so much more. Learning by doing. You can see fear in their faces when told to let the piece go to the subs and out to the world. One student took four hours of persuasion. His work is up on the site now – eventually. You can spot it as it is very carefully crafted and re-crafted and subbed.

Come out of closet, journalism educators! Trust your students. Try teaching journalism using the real world with the cordite of failure and the sweet smell of success. It’s what happens in real newsrooms. Daily.

I can just about remember…

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. His colleague Andrew Noakes, who teaches automotive journalism, ‘is doing most of the hard work’.

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

    • Why Jeremy Paxman is the new Charles Wheeler

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    Tonight he steps up to get the first ever Charles Wheeler Award at Westminster University from his boss Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general. Paxo is now the worthy wearer of Wheeler’s Crown. Well deserved.

    Charles loved words and using them. So does Paxman. Witness this week, Paxman calling Esther Rantzen a ‘retired television nabob’. Ouch.

    It’s what good journalists do; we use words. Charles transformed any film which he reported. I’ve seen very so-so stories become very good watches when reported by Wheeler. Paxman, lest we forget now that he is in a warm studio, was the best film reporter of his generation. Look at some of the films from the Central American frontline 30 years ago. The man learned early.

    Charles liked to cause mischief. All good hacks do. He was once heavily censured by the BBC bosses for being rude to royalty on tour. Did he care? Not a jot! Think Paxman and Blair: ‘Do you and President Bush pray together?’ and my all-time favourite to Shaun Woodward, the new MP for St Helens in deepest Lancashire: ‘Mr Woodward did your butler vote Labour?’ (Woodward is very rich and was parachuted to St Helens. He did have a butler).

    Charles was less the master of the studio than Paxo has become. Charles always looked a mite uncomfortable, Paxo not. A caged animal waiting for its prey. It’s no wonder Gordon Brown refuses to be interviewed by him. Paxo takes Newsnight up a gear when he presents it.

    Both are, to use that wonderful English word, ‘curmudgeonly’. So what? There are too many smiling faces on TV and too many autocuties. Curmudgeons find things out – even if they do not make huge numbers of friends. But then good hacks are loners.

    For all of their similarities (and differences) who can begrudge Paxo the title of King of the TV Journalism jungle? Not me.

    John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He produced last month’s Media Society Annual Award Dinner for Jeremy Paxman.

    Note: updated with subbing corrections 21.05.09

    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.