Churnalism fights back against PR

Journalism is all about reporting facts and unveiling truths but the frightening rise in press release reporting goes against the very essence of news.

The work being done by Churnalism is a fantastic breakthrough to reveal the extent of which press releases are forming our news agenda. I remember on work placements at local newspapers being told to rewrite press release. Perhaps more worringly, on television news programmes, I also have been told to sift through the news releases to cobble together a story for the next day’s news. This isn’t journalism.

The influence of PR has widely been blamed for rise of celebrity news and pseudo-events to present a celebrity in a specific light. You have that knowledge and understanding when you read the trashy magazines and accept it. It’s simply a bit of light relief. When it comes to reading stories in newspapers or listen to bulletins on 5live, you expect to be hearing news.

The work of Chris Atkins and the Media Standards Trust provides a devastating insight into some news organisations (please note, I am not accusing all!) where staffing issues and time constraints are allowing this churnalism to set the news agenda.

For the full story, please click here and an excellent video by Chris Atkins

Media City…8 months to go

It really will be fantastic. MediaCityUK promises to be the best creative hub in the UK and after witnessing the facilities and momentum behind the project today, it will be.

The site is really coming on and the studios are incredible. I sneakily took some shots as I went on a tour of the BBC buildings. What do you think?

Sun shines on MediaCityUK

University of Salford & ITV building

Entrance at one of the BBC buildings

Sound studio

Gallery in the sound studio

Philharmonic studio

Moving stage in Philharmonic studio

Edit suite…not sure about the windows if you’re editing

 

 

A little nag on writing

Good writing is at the very core of good journalism. If you can’t write, you need to look for a new career. Some people are often mistaken and think that if you’re a broadcast journalist, good writing isn’t as important. The truth is it’s even more paramount that you tell the story effectively. If you think about some of the best television and radio journalists, their writing skills have got them to where they are.

So why the nag about good writing? This morning I was watching a reporter on the programme I used to work for. They were covering a crime story and said the “police were scouring the investigation scene”. I’m sorry, what? This doesn’t make sense and even if it did, police “scouring”? In their defence, it’s not always easy on a live broadcast to remember the best way to tell the story. It’s even more difficult when it’s a ridiculous hour and you probably have had very little sleep. I’m sure I have said worse in my time. But, “scouring”?

So, the moral of the story is writing as a broadcast journalist is just as important as if you were in print. You have to use the right words and pictures to effectively tell a story in a carefully crafted way. Think about every single word and what it is adding to your piece. Choose wisely.

I leave you with a great final line from a Bill Neely piece on the rescue of a woman in Haiti. Perfect.

“But her survival is the exception in a city of death. She drove away as if nothing had happened to see for herself the horror that had been hidden from her.”

Media City: changing the BBC forever…so says Peter Salmon

“Lots of places have a north”

That was the introductory line in the video that was used to introduce Peter Salmon, Director of BBC North to the staff and students at the University  of Salford. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at that point. We know we’re in the north. We know it’s full of opportunity. That point doesn’t need selling.

What the students who booked for the event wanted to know was will they have jobs at the BBC site in Media City? Will the licence fee freeze have an impact on the move to the north? Should Peter Salmon be getting a salary of £400k+ when so many are facing cutbacks? One very brave student asked that…more to follow.

The focus in the partnership between the University of Salford and BBC North is a “shared future”. The reasons behind the BBC move to Salford have been well documented. The BBC doesn’t connect as well with viewers outside of London on all platforms of content and services. Traditionally, the commercial sector has been very strong in the North. Put those elements together and the future of Media City is clear.

“This is not an initiative or pilot. It’s about changing the BBC forever.”                                Peter Salmon  

But for the students, the crucial question over jobs remains. For Peter Salmon the answer is simple;

There are 2000+ jobs at the BBC in Media City

1/3 of those are coming from London

1/3 of those are from BBC Manchester

Therefore, 1/3 of those are new recruits. That’s around 650 new positions!

The questions came thick and fast from the students. How will Media City thrive when there’s constant cuts? Peter Salmon has faith and confidence in the project and it’s a long-term committment.

Will the licence fee freeze affect the plans? Luckily most of it is already paid for but we will have to make the money go further. It’s about not wasting and being creative.

Is there a danger of the BBC dominating Media City? Obviously the two are very interlinked but the BBC needs to learn how to do partnerships with other well-known organisations and creative companies.

Things are tough with cuts but is that understood on a salary of £400k? (A very brave  MA student!) 25% per cent of senior managers are losing their jobs. Just because they work in the public sector doesn’t mean it doesn’t matters. All senior managers are taking a 20% pay cut. Peter Salmon is taking a 25% pay cut next year. Is he worth that salary? He was paid more for jobs in the independent sector!

Peter Salmon has insisted there is a strong committment to the project, that a third of the workforce will be new recruits and that this is a chance to be creative with future technology.

“The old Salford docks have created something         truly innovative.”

Let’s see what happens in May 2011.

Tomorrow’s Journalists..advice from Cardiff

Cardiff Journalism School is one of the world’s leading training grounds for journalists. It is also my old stomping ground, where I studied all the skills I thought I would need in my job as a television news reporter.

Now there’s a lot more than simply mastering the white balance of a PD150 (that’s what we used) and to celebrate 40 years of training the best in the industry (I can say that, admitting to being a little biased), on Friday October 15th, CJS looked to the future with an industry conference entitled “Tomorrow’s Journalists”.

Session 1: The Challenge of Convergence

The most important to lesson to come out of this session was that students need to have as many skills as possible and all should maintain an online presence. Employers are increasingly using this to view a prospective employee’s work and to assess their writing skills.

In a multi-media world, Pete Clifton, Head of Editorial Development in Multimedia Journalism at the BBC, said the key is to think about how you can tell stories on different platforms. Some treatments may not work in all platforms.

He brought up an example of a news timeline as a “new way of reporting”.  This is the kind of webpage that is updated in real-time with an almost minute by minute account of a story. Correspondents can send a 160 character text to update it. This was used last week with the Chilean rescue. The page received 7million hits.

Peter Barron from Google also noted how US website Spot.US (http://spot.us/) fund their news. This is community-funded journalism where you contribute to the cost of the story and once the target has been reached, the story is reported on.

Session 2: Digital Spin and the 2010 election

Simon Lewis, former director of communications at Downing Street took to the stage and the audience, with a large number of former lobbyists present, unanimously agreed that the lobby system is outdated and needs modernizing.

He noted that there was no longer a sensible relationship with the press. There’s a sense that the lobby has the story in their mind that they want and everything else disappears. For example, when Brown went to US last year, they all wanted the story to be that Obama had snubbed the PM. That was the pre-narrative the lobby wanted to write, despite it not being the case.

Two very press-worthy comments came out of the discussion

1/ When he was Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, picked up the phone to Rupert Murdoch to complain about the one-sided coverage and in particular the impact it had on the war in Afghanistan.

2/ The Queen used to chair meetings on how to spin the royal family post-Diana. Imagine that!

Session 3: Does regional news have a future?

This was a very lively debate off the back of Jeremy Hunt’s plans for lots of hyperlocal sites.

For the most part, it was fairly pessimistic. Clive Jones (ITV/S4C) said that Hunt’s view was “ill thought out, ill-considered” and a “fantasy not a dream”.

He suggested the government should introduce extra PSB so companies can form alliances with newspapers, radio stations, etc. It would mean more funding for the much under resourced ITV. If this doesn’t happen, all news will end up coming from the BBC – “that is a danger”.

There was optimism from Alan Edmunds, editor of the Western Mail who said that he expects all his journalists do be able to do everything as they are working in multi-media.

The conference provided a look to how journalists will be working in the future and what demands they will face. They need to be multi-skilled but there are still specific set mediums that they will work in. Students should be encouraged to maintain an online presence with blogs to showcase their work. The importance is placed on creating your own opportunities, looking at video journalism and how content will be developed to fit different platforms.

The rescue of the Chilean miners

It is very rare for there to be such a massive breaking news story that is not centered around death or devastation.

 

The rescue efforts of the Chilean miners is one example which has captivated viewers around the world.

 

All eyes are on Chile’s San Jose mine and the 33 miners who have been trapped for 69 days.

 

Backgrounds of the men have been released. We have a baby that hasn’t met their father. We have the wife and mistress who have met for the first time – it’ll be a long twenty minute ride to the surface for him. We have the proposal.

 

No doubt Hollywood is already scripting the feature length film. No doubt Tom Hanks is in talks about taking on a role.

 

Throughout all of this the people of Chile have been portrayed as being calm and patient.

 

There has been very little negativity, though how long that will last with so many journalists at the scene remains to be scene.

 

The @AEJMC reported that more than 1000 journalists had received a pass of accreditation allowing them close to the action to report on the rescue. That number of journalists coupled together in one location is never a good idea.

 

When I reported on the campaign trail for the US elections, you would often have hundreds and hundreds of reporters crammed into one small room for an event with the now President Obama. Events I have covered like the death of Heath Ledger meant that you had thousands trying to get to the bottom of what had happened. I can only imagine how daunting it will be for the miners and their families being confronted by the bright lights and flash bulbs of the one thousand plus journalists.

 

Coverage so far has been superb, with one exception. Sky News made, what I see as poor judgement, in putting a ‘miner counter’ on the top left hand corner of the screen. It has made a mockery of the event, trivialising the very real situation of 33 miners trapped. I tweeted about it last night and the reaction was the same as mine. It is distasteful and disrespectful.

 

A special mention has to go out to my former GMTV colleagues, now at Daybreak. @TVRav and @RichardGaisford have been tweeting pictures and updates through the whole event, despite working as a two-person crew. GMTV was notorious for sending you out on big stories with very few resources. I remember Richard Gaisford in Israel sending the newsroom a picture of his crew (himself, a taxi and a laptop) and the BBC (hundreds!). They will be like that in this situation so a great deal of praise is saved for them.

 

It will now be interesting in the days to come to see how coverage develops as more stories come to light and money begins to exchange hands.

Interview tips

Interviewing is the key part of television.

The interview is at the heart of a news story and the aim of all good interviews is to get information that you haven’t heard before.

Everyone interviews in their own way. Watch Jeremy Paxman interviewing George Galloway in 2005 after he won his MP seat in Bethnal. Is this a fair interview? Is it balanced?

The Paxman style of interviewing is his own practiced approach and works well, excluding the Galloway attack, for the type of programme and type of interviewer Paxman is. It is not advised to replicate that style when you are interviewing a local charity manager about the car wash they are hosting to raise money.

Although your own interview style is unique there are some tips for conducting a good interview for television.

1/ Research.

Make sure you know the subject. There is nothing worse than being corrected on something because you didn’t know the facts. Before you start the interview, check details with the interviewee to avoid this happening on air.

2/ Never rehearse the interview.

It is tempting as a new journalist to want to rehearse the interview so you know what you are asking and what the answers are going to be. Don’t. It will come across like that and not as a natural conversation. I always say to my guest that we are talking about this issue so will be looking at their views on the topic, what it means and who its going to have an impact on. You can give them a framework for reassurance but you need to be in control of the interview.

3/ Never script an interview.

Have a plan so you know what questions you want to ask. Make notes if you want to have those with you. But try not to script the interview. You will be looking down at your notepad trying to see what is coming up next without actually doing the journalism and listening to the answers. Our interviewee may have given you a new line, an exclusive, but you were looking ahead to the next question and missed it. The best way is to have a guide but listen to the answers and ask follow up questions accordingly.

4/ Maintain eye contact.

This follows on from keeping it conversational and flowing. You must maintain eye contact with your interview, listen to the responses, ask questions that follow, engage in what is being said. Media training experts advise clients of matching the journalist’s energy. Remember that.

5/ Think soundbites.

If you are working towards a package and your interview is not going out live, chances are all you need is a soundbite – usually around a 20secs clip. Always remember this in the interview as you will need a clean in and out point. Don’t be afraid to ask the same question again, just in a slightly different way to get a cleaner clip.

6/ Ensure you have footage for edit.

You may need to get setup shots to introduce your guest. These are usually best done after the interview. GMTV banned the usual “making a cup of tea” shots as have many news organisations. Try and find something different and something relevant. You also need to remember to have cutaways or noddies to enable a clean edit. Or get shots of what it is your guest is talking about to cover some of the interview so it’s not just a single, static shot.

7/ Presence.

Remember to sit still – if you’re moving around and looking away, it will make the interviewee anxious and nervous. Also remember to speak clearly and ask your questions clearly. You want to refrain from making a statement as a question as the interviewee will be waiting to hear a question. This applies to long, multiple questions as well which just confuse your guest. And finally, dress the part. You can’t go an MP’s office in a pair of jeans and trainers.

8/ Be professional!