The House of Commons media and culture select committe has proposed the creation of a Council For Child Internet Safety to monitor user-generated content sites for offensive material.
The self-regulation by users of sites such as YouTube is not sufficient according to the committee.
A video uploaded by a New York tourist to YouTube has captured a seemingly unprovoked attack on a cyclist by a police officer.
According to CNET, the video is at odds with the officer’s own report of the incident.
The video-sharing site has plans to harness the power of ‘citizen journalism’ with the launch of its Citizen News channel. Was this video submitted to any news organisations before or at the same time as YouTube?
Whether it was or not this video shows YouTube’s potential for newsgatherers and illustrates the changing relationship between the public and the media – some citizens would rather broadcast the news themselves.
Congratulations to blog publisher Shiny Media for reaching the 1,000 mark with its technology videos on YouTube. Here’s entry 1,000:
And for posterity… here’s the very first:
The BBC’s executive directors’ pay rose by £708,000 in 2007/8 with pay for the 10 directors totalling £4,960,000, according to figures from the corporation’s annual report.
Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, received a bonus of £41,000, while outgoing director of Future Media & Technology Ashley Highfield received £34,000. Director general Mark Thompson rejected the offer of an annual bonus.
Both the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and BECTU have challenged the rises in light of 2,500 proposed job cuts at the corporation announced in October.
“Management should have the decency to show restraint at a time when so many BBC staff are under huge pressures following major cutbacks. This announcement will only serve to disillusion staff further,” Paul McLaughlin, NUJ broadcasting organiser, said in a statement from the union.
Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, reiterated the need to improve the management structure of bbc.co.uk before approving further investment. In May the site’s management was blamed for losing ‘effective control’ after a £36 million overspend.
More figures from the report:
BBC Worldwide
Analysis of BBC Worldwide (part of the annual report and separate reviews released) emphasised the importance of online in growing its global audience. The service’s online audience rose 34 per cent year-on-year. However, the review highlighted the failure of Spanish-language site BBC Mundo to meet the demands of increased internet access.
The launch of BBC Arabic came in for particular praise in the review, creating ‘trimedia’ BBC coverage in Arabic:
“With the launch of BBC Arabic television, our multimedia strategy took a giant step forward. That moment in March 2008 marked the successful culmination of a four-year journey to secure funding and deliver a high-quality television service in a vital region of the world.”
Online revenues accounted for 2.7 per cent of total sales for BBC Worldwide in 2007/8 – rising from 1.1 per cent previously, the report said. The creation of bbc.com and syndication deals with YouTube and iTunes were cited as key revenue drivers for the service.
In part two of his seminar to the Guardian, as part of the Future of Journalism series, Jeff Jarvis argues that links are worth more than content
ITN Source has signed a ‘six figure’ deal with Al Jazeera to make 800,000 hours of archived video content available to the broadcaster, a press release has said.
The network and production companies making programmes for Al Jazeera will have access to footage from Channel 4, Reuters, Granada and ITN as part of the deal.
The agreement covers both transmission on the Al Jazeera Network and through online outlets, including its YouTube channel, for five years.
Al Jazeera has posted its series on the intimidation and killing of journalists in conflict zones to YouTube.
Shooting the Messenger – a four-part documentary of 11-minute clips – focuses on how international correspondents, both reporters and cameramen, have become targets in the field with the recent death in Gaza of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana’a and the release of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj bringing the issue into sharp focus.
Watch the first part of the series, which was originally broadcast on June 14, below:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOpp-zcFUA]