House Fire in Hulland Ward

This is one of the few stories I've worked on which has continued to play on my mind long after my working day is over. Over the last couple of days I've been covering the disturbing story of the death of four children in a house fire in Hulland Ward near Ashbourne. This was the first time I've been on a story for BBC Radio Derby where TV crews from Sky News, BBC News, ITV News etc were there. Yesterday I did seven lives for the breakfast show from the scene, including this one...

I then went to Ashbourne, where the childrens' mother works to report for the mid morning show...

Internet Election

ELECTION BLOG 1

How did you follow the general election? The political parties invested a huge amount of effort into trying to reach their supporters and undecided voters through social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Before polling day, I investigated whether this is the first internet election...

The report includes an interview with Richard Allan from Facebook and Dr Peter Woodcock from Huddersfield University.

This video is also on the ITV Yorkshire website.

My Top Podcasts - Part 2

Unlike the podcasts I went through in my previous post, the following aren't broadcast on the radio and are only accessible through the internet.

John Pienaar's Political Review podcast. The week's events in Westminster are mulled over by 5 Live's Chief Political Correspondent and a guest (often a political reporter for a national paper). It's informal yet informative and best of all, concise - normally 15 minutes.

The Guardian's Media Talk podcast is a round table discussion on the week's events in the media. This is the commercial rival of BBC Radio 4's The Media Show. There's much more banter, gossip and rumours in this podcast which makes it an easy listen. The presenter and guests are Guardian and Observer journalists and occasionally they'll have interviews with some of the industry heavy weights.

The Guardian's Politics Weekly podcast undoubtedly has centre-left leanings, as you'd expect from a political discussion by Guardian journalists. Well worth listening to if politics is your thing - an intelligent insight into politics from some of the Guardian comment writers including Polly Tonybee. It also has a BBC Radio 4 equivalent, The Weekly Political Review.

Prayer from Taizé podcast. Taizé is a Christian community in France which I've blogged about in the past. It comprises of highlights of the past week's prayer services from the church Taizé. I'm often reminded of the amazing times I've had by the beautiful singing.

I also enjoy the BBC Match Of The Day Magazine podcast, even though it's aimed at children. They're expertly produced by a good friend of mine.

So as the above shows, it's not just the BBC who produce superb podcasts. Give them a go and let me know what you think.

My Top Podcasts - Part 1

BBC Radio Podcasts

I've been regularly listening to podcasts since I finally bought an iPod over a year ago. I think I've got my commitment to listening to radio programmes from my Dad - since I was a young lad I've seen him recording numerous radio programmes on cassette and then listening to them at his pleasure. And he still does so to this day. Podcasts are my equivalent.

I thought I'd pick out some of my favourite podcasts. The following are programmes on BBC Radio 4 that you can listen to as a podcast:

The Media Show - Covers the week's big media stories. Presented by Guardian Journalist Steve Hewlett who's very knowledgeable on the media but not a natural broadcaster, he often stumbling over his words! It tends to focus more on journalism than any other area of the media. Unsurprisingly it attracts some of the industries big hitters as guests e.g. BBC Director General Mark Thompson. A must listen for anyone in, or wanting to break into, the media.

From Our Own Correspondent - The BBC is the largest broadcasting organisation in the world and so it has an unparalleled network of journalists. This programme is made up of monologues by these correspondents on newsworthy events from the countries they're based in. I find the programme more hit than miss but it can be a little dry at times. It's at its best when the correspondents provide a personal insight into the news stories.

The Weekly Political Review - While Parliament is sitting, one of a number of leading political commentators reflect on the week's political events with MPs, Peers and others involved in politics. I prefer when the Parliament is in recess and the programme explores a political issue instead. They normally go out into the country (ie. out of London!) and speak to people affected by government policy. Well worth listening to if like me, politics is your thing.

Analysis - A topical question is posed at the start of the programme and then explored for thirty minutes. Brilliantly put together and very informative.

The Bottom Line - I'm not really into business news yet I always enjoy listening to this programme. Each week three leading businessmen/women from one industry are interviewed by Evan Davis. He (and his guests) always make what appear to be dry issues interesting.

Beyond Belief - The presenter Ernie Rea and three guests discuss the role religon plays in today's world. Rea's knowledge, ability to ask the right question and background (he grew up in Belfast and was a Presbyterian Minister on the Shankill Road) often makes it a very good listen.

Best of Today - Unlike the above this podcast isn't the full programme, but what the editor decides is the best interview/report from the day's Today programme. Probably my favourite podcast from the best programme on the radio.

You don't have to have an iPod to listen to podcasts, as you can do so on the relevant websites but it's easier with an iPod as you can listen on the move and they automatically upload to the iPod when you attach it to your computer. One day soon, I think my dad will make the move from recording his favourite programmes on cassette to downloading them on an iPod as there's no need to be around to press record!

I'll write another blog soon on my favourite podcasts that, unlike the above, are not broadcast on BBC radio.

Please add a comment to this blog with your favourite podcasts. I've found out about many of the above through recommendations from friends.

The Next Big Thing?

What's the next digital creation?

Well while I was chatting away away to Nana Ruth, a good friend of the Ansell family, I think I came upon what might be the next big thing. It's a combination of Google-like search and GPS.

I think the next big will be searching on your mobile for the nearest place you can get hold of the item you require. So for example, you'd type into your phone 'loo roll' and it'll tell you where the nearest place from where you are that you can buy roll and it'll also tell you how to walk/drive there.

You could then register your car keys and watch into your mobile phone so that when you can't find them, you simply type them in the search page of your mobile and it'll tell you where you've left them

What do you think? Is this already out there? If not, when you do first see it, remember where you heard it first!

Will good journalism be the first casualty of the digital revolution in the media?

Digital changes the playing field, but not the goal of good journalism

Back in 2003 Ian Hargreaves suggested in his book Journalism: Truth or Dare that it was not an exaggeration to say that there has been a ‘digital revolution’ in the media where ‘News is multimedia, instant, global and ubiquitous’. The impact of the digital revolution on journalism has been profound – some believe to the detriment of good journalism.

I see the digital revolution in the media as affecting journalism in two associated ways. Firstly, journalists have to work in more than one sole medium. For example newspaper journalists also write for online, blog, and make podcasts and video news packages - journalism is converging. Secondly, digital media has allowed the audience not only to interact with journalists via email and online comments pages, but also to be the creators of news content. The public has been empowered through digital technology to record material, so journalists are no longer the first to acquire the content of a story.

For example only a few weeks ago a single mother from Merseyside found, through a few simple searches in Google, a photo of John ‘missing canoe man’ Darwin and his wife in Panama. She beat the traditional media, not to mention the Cleveland Police, at their own game and passed the photo to the Daily Mirror. Not only do these citizen journalists now have the power through digital technology to send their user-generated content to a media organisation, but they can publish the material as blogs, podcasts or on purely user-generated news websites such as LiveLeak.com. These websites and blogs conform to none of the editorial guidelines professional journalists have to abide by, yet are increasingly popular. According to the Deputy Director of BBC Worldwide, Nicholas Brett, thanks to blogs, “everyone’s now a journalist”.

But there remains one key difference between citizen journalists and professional journalists: the former do not have the same professional standards as the latter who have editorial guidelines to stick to if nothing else. Hence there is a place for courses in journalism which include the teaching of media law, ethics and safety.

The prize-winning David Leigh, Assistant Editor of the Guardian, blames the internet for “overloading us with instantaneous terrors” and degrading the valuable journalistic traditions of assessing the credibility of sources etc. He argues that “too much interactivity” reaffirms prejudice, that bloggers “enjoy the sound of their own voices and confirm their own prejudices”. According to Leigh, the authoritativeness of professional journalism has been unduly criticised. For the good of democracy he calls for greater respect for the reporter “as a patient assembler of facts, a skilled craftsman who is independent and professionally reputable”.

Journalistic standards are slipping according to Professor Justin Lewis of Cardiff Journalism School. He quotes research from the Rowntree Foundation and The Guardian on British broadsheet newspapers, which found that while there are roughly the same numbers of journalists as two years ago, they are writing nearly three times as much material. This is due to having to write for online, blogging and making video news stories as well as their original job of writing for their newspaper. They have less time to devote to the traditional journalistic values of for example checking your sources and verifying the facts.

“The more journalists have to do, the less they know about the stories they’re covering” stated Channel Four News presenter and reporter Alex Thomson when I quizzed him about the impact of digital on journalism. In the digital world there is less time to consider editorial guidelines such as the BBC’s aim of being accurate, establishing the truth, being impartial and providing diversity of opinion.

The report of the National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) Commission on Multi-Media Working found that while some journalists may extend their repertoires thanks to new media, they do so at the expense of time for reflection and investigation. The rush to new media tends to “gnaw away at the quality of journalism”. The commission’s survey found that half of the newspaper workplaces questioned said there had been redundancies since web operations had been introduced. The NUJ’s report clearly shows that good journalism has been compromised by the digital media revolution.

The Director of BBC News Helen Boaden is on the other hand confident that the digital revolution doesn’t mean poorer quality journalism at the BBC. Whilst there is a cut of hundreds of journalists at the BBC, good journalism will remain by minimising duplication through its journalists working together in the same newsroom. This means that, for example, instead of sending individual journalists to a story from Radio 4, 5 Live, BBC News 24 and the 6 O’clock news, and BBC online, fewer journalists would cover the story and provide material for more than one of the BBC’s platforms.

Helen Boaden argues that ‘citizen journalism’ is an inaccurate term and should be replaced by the term ‘citizen newsgathering’ because professional journalists are employed to ensure the work of citizen newsgatherers is impartial and accurate. While a user-generated content hub has been created at BBC News, it will never replace BBC Newsgathering where professional journalists work. Furthermore when the citizen newsgatherer submits material to the user-generated content hub, it is checked by professional journalists. She believes that journalism is still about accuracy and professional standards – “whilst embracing new media, ‘content is king’”.

Nicholas Brett agrees and points out that while citizen journalism expands, the values of good journalism – “such as great ideas, story telling, good writing, being obsessive about accuracy and most importantly understanding your audience – won’t change”. Likewise Alex Thomson argues that Channel Four News has survived through the digital revolution with an increasing audience because “there is a market for good quality journalism”.

As a trainee journalist, while I accept that the digital revolution has eroded journalistic values, it is vital to embrace digital media and recognise the role I could play in a converging, digital newsroom. As Roy Greenslade points out, “All of us must be multi-media journos from now on”. Perhaps the next step for journalism in the digital world will be media organisations providing journalism training for citizen journalists. Media blogger Jeff Jarvis wants media organisations to assign the public to report alongside professionals, “to gather more news than could ever be gathered before”. If this does ever happen, the role between the professional and citizen journalist will be further blurred. David Leigh isn’t confident about the future of journalism, believing the media will “fragment and splinter into a thousand weakly-financed websites and digital channels”. There will be a severe reduction in the power of individual media outlets and ”the reporter will struggle to be heard over the cacophony of a thousand other voices.” I may as well give up now!

Perhaps for my self-preservation, I prefer to follow the view of The Independent journalist Gavin O’Reilly: quality, distinctive journalism will stand the test of time and the “constant onslaught of technological innovation”. He thinks “quality, established and trustworthy journalism will become even more relevant” in the growing digital age.

As a trainee journalist my focus is on becoming a top quality journalist whilst embracing digital media. BBC Trustee Richard Tait argues, “Success in the world of journalism means blending new opportunities with old editorial values”. This is unquestionably the path I am going to pursue, on the turbulent, exciting career which lies ahead.

'The conservatism of journalism students'

Martin Stabe's blog entitled 'the conservatism of journalism students' touches a nerve. He, and a few other bloggers such as Mindy McAdams and Rob Curely, believe that journalism students are 'closing their eyes to reality' - that they have a romantic attachment to traditional media. (Martin is however pleased to find that we Cardiff Journalism students blog on our lectures.)

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that some of my fellow students do have this misguided 'bah, humbug' attitude to digital media. And I've touched briefly on this before. Some turn their nose up to using a mobile phone to record content for an online feature, or think blogging is above them. I believe they are missing the point. The fact that we have the opportunity and are encouraged to use digital technology makes us both able to tell our stories in more ways to a wider audience. If that isn't enough, it (therefore) makes us more employable.

Why are some of students not embracing digital? Because it's easier not to and because the traditional media are viewed as superior. It is not helped by the fact that we choose between the magazine, print and broadcast journalism options rather than being on one unified journalism course.

How long until some of my course mates see the light? Perhaps it won't be until when they are at interviews and are asked about their experience with digital as well as traditional media.

Council v Campaign Group - Cardiff Education in Focus

Here's my online article that I discussed in a blog a few months ago.

My video intro to the story

Cardiff Council is locked in a heated clash with a group of local residents in the east of the city over a proposal to build on an extensive green open space. The Council wants to knock down Rumney High and Llanrumney High Schools and build one new school and leisure centre where the two schools geographically meet – on the Llanrumney recreation ground.

The proposal is part of a plan to deal with long-standing problems in Cardiff’s school set-up. Councillor Bill Kelloway (pictured below) is in charge of Education in the Cardiff and is adamant that major changes need to be made to the organisation of Cardiff’s schools: “We have far more places in our schools than we have children to fill them - and a fifty to sixty million pound repairs backlog”.

The proposal has been met with indignation as the recreation ground has over five hundred trees and a number of football and rugby pitches. Eight thousand people have signed a petition launched by the Rumney Recreation and Eastern Leisure Centre Action Group to stop the development. The group organises popular campaign meetings at the local British Legion club and distributes leaflets to all the houses in the locality. During a recent meeting Don Taylor, the group's chairperson (pictured below), rallied his hundred and fifty troops to oppose the Council’s proposal. He explained to me why he is so passionate about holding on to the green space: “We’re in the middle of an urban sprawl, we need the open space. It’s our jewel in the crown, our oasis”.

Councillor Kelloway however wants people to remember that a significant proportion of the recreation ground would still be open for public use: "There would still be plenty of space there for pitches and for people to walk their dogs”. In fact around a third of the recreation ground would be taken up by the new school and leisure centre, which you can see in the Council’s diagram (below).

I decided to have a good look round the recreation ground and bumped into Joan Lathen (pictured below), a resident of Llanrumney, on her daily dog walk. She has been walking her dog round the rec for around thirty years and is angry with the Council: “I think it’s terrible, because so many people use the recreation ground, from children to pensioners. Everybody uses it all day long. It’ll be chaos if the school is built with the traffic and everything”.

(Click here to listen to my interview with Joan)
The Council has put its schools plan out for public consultation which ends today. Whether the Llanrumney proposal goes ahead or not will partly depend on the public’s response. As part of this consultation, a public meeting was organised to discuss the Llanrumney proposal. Two hundred disgruntled residents turned up with placards (pictured below) to let the Council officers and Councillor Bill Kelloway know their thoughts on the proposal. One of the first points from the floor summed up the sentiment in the room: “We’re all going to be fighting this, you won’t take our land off us”, and later in the two-and-a-half hour meeting, a lady shrieked to mighty applause: “We’ll demonstrate and say enough is enough, you're not going our parklands away from us!” .

However this meeting, like the Rumney Recreation and Eastern Leisure Centre Action Group meetings, was dominated by people in their sixties and above - you do wonder whether everyone in the community would agree with the campaign to stop the development. How about the parents of the children who would benefit from the new school on the site? I spoke to Bill Kelloway at his office in County Hall and this was the point he wanted to get across to the community: “Don’t be blinkered. Look at the advantages to the community, particularly to the schools communities, who at present are operating in pretty sub-standard conditions.”

But Don Taylor and the rest of the campaign group believe the new school and leisure centre would not only take away precious green space but also cause serious problems for the community with the inevitable increase in traffic that a new school would bring. They are determined to get their voice heard: “We will fight it; they have to listen to us. They have to respond to the voice of the people.”

If the controversial proposal goes ahead, by September 2012 there will be a new school and leisure centre for the Rumney and Llanrumney community on their beloved recreation ground.

A new school here in 2012? The Llanrumney recreation ground

The New www.bbc.co.uk

If you haven't already heard, the BBC has launched the Beta (aka in development) version of its new website. It wasn't a big surprise to me thanks to Pete Clifton's talk on the future of BBC Interactive but it is a big change to the current bbc.co.uk version we've come to know very well since 2003.

The key principle of the new website is aggregation - instead of everybody seeing the same content on the homepage, it lets the individual user choose the content they want on the homepage. Websites like Facebook and Netvibes have been using aggregation for a while now and it's not a surprise to see the BBC upgrade, especially since it has an incredible amount and range of news and sport content and three platforms of TV and radio as well as online content.

But is the new site really Beta? Sorry, I mean better? I like the new site because it's clean but attractive and has further developed local content with, for example, your local BBC Radio Station's current programme just one click away. Once the iPlayer with its TV programmes is on the homepage in the new year, then it'll be the full package.

For news, all this news aggregation does mean that sometime soon you will be able to completely avoid the main news headlines and just view the news areas you're interested in. Some would argue this is a positive step since it's giving the user what they want but others fear it will mean people will be less well educated about a range of news stories. I think that in balance it's good because it has the power to engage people who are currently disinterested in news.

Anthony Mayfield

Head of Media, Spannerworks.

What is the current state of play with the World Wide Web?

Having heard a number of lecturers touching on the subject (including today's with search engine marketing specialist Anthony Mayfield) I feel fairly confident I can give an answer.

The speed of communication has accelerated. Newspapers for example are no longer competing on a daily basis, but minute by minute online. The scale of available content is vast because the individual living in countries rich and poor has been empowered to create. According to Anthony, by 2010, 70% of online content will be created by individuals rather than companies and organisations. Individuals are communicating and interacting more and more through social networks - of the 1.25 billion people online, 400 million (and rising) use social networks.

In relation to journalism, rather than being passive readers, internet users are expecting to interact with journalists by emailing them and writing comments on their articles. And content lasts - yesterday's news is no longer today's chip shop paper. For example, yesterday on Guardian Unlimited, a story written in 2000 was the second most read on the website, incidentally it concerned sex in space (Astronauts test sex in space - but did the earth move?)!

That's some of the main characteristics of today's internet. It's clear to me that every aspiring journalist needs to embrace them to be successful.

Richard Burton

Editor, Jewish Chronicle. Former Editor, Telegraph.co.uk

This week I finally got it. It was helped along by listening to a set of Radio 4 programmes on the British newspaper industry, some strong words from course leader Matt Yeomans in our online workshop and finally by Richard Burton in today’s lecture. What am I on about? Well it’s that whilst the easy way to deal with all the new media technology of social networks, blogs and podcasts, is to stay well away…

New technology is absolutely central to today’s, and even more, tomorrow’s world of journalism. If I do not embrace new media technology, it will affect my employability as a journalist.

According to Richard, this ‘innate ability to get hold of new technology’ is expected of any wannabe journalist, and assuming I have this, the factor that will make me stand out from the crowd is how good I am at doing the basics of journalism. That means I need to be able to find a good story, write well, have excellent spelling and grammar, be able to conduct a very good interview etc.

I need to be both a very good journalist and able to use all this new technology. So I have to keep plugging away at improving my traditional journalistic skills (especially the spelling in my case), AND I must embrace and not fall into the trap of running scared of Flickr, Youtube, my blogs etc - as I think some are on the Diploma course are.

Pete Clifton

Head of BBC News Interactive

Early on in the lecture, the dramatic drop in 16-24 year olds accessing BBC News was highlighted. I therefore assume that BBC News’ upcoming developments, which Pete succinctly and vibrantly delivered in today’s lecture, are aimed at trying to reverse this trend of young people turning away from BBC News (as well as trying to keep up with society’s current and future technological use).

However this leaves me wondering, will these changes work? These quite exciting developments include a full news offer on mobiles, giant BBC screens with a live feed of News 24 in Britain’s cities and a personalised BBC News online homepage (being accessed on your mobile of course!).

My housemates believe that whether a member of ‘da yoof’ follows the news or not is dependent on their background and not related to its availability on their media devices or to do with changing the news agenda to be more youth friendly. You can conclude from this that BBC News’ developments are not going to succeed. I am unsure and hope the changes do work. The implication of 16-24 year olds continuing to be less and less engaged with the news is frightening – both for the ideal of a well educated, vibrant democracy and closer to home, for my job opportunities!

Daniel Meadows

Guest lecturer Daniel Meadows took today’s online journalism lecture on the digital age and digital storytelling. Daniel is a lecturer at Cardiff University and runs a digital storytelling website called photobus.co.uk. He led a BBC project called Capture Wales where members of the public were taught how to make their own digital stories.

Similar public engagement with the media is happening around us, for example community radio stations like Radio Cardiff which was officially launched today and the BBC’s Video Nation, where people are trained how to make a video about whatever they want to (here’s my younger brother Pascal’s video).

Daniel is optimistic about the digital age, it promises: interactivity, journalism as a conversation and the democratisation of the media. He believes that through making videos, the public is empowered. Daniel talked of the need for us trainee journalists to expand on the public’s engagement with digital media and believes that soon, part of being a journalist will be to facilitate the public creating their own media programming.

Assuming Daniel is right, I think the real challenge is to work out how we can allow all people to be able to make news items for the news programme. How do we bridge the digital divide and keep everyone up with the pace of the ever developing new media technology? I’m not sure what the answers are but am excited about how I as a journalist could be part of this digital media empowerment movement.