Homeless Mobile Phones

I've been reporting on a new scheme where homeless people in Rotherham are being given mobile phones and tablets to help them stay in touch with support services while their drop-in centre is closed because of lockdown. The NHS has funded forty rough sleepers being given the devices to help ward off isolation. One homeless man told me the phone has been a life saver.



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Mobile Journalism

Here's a good example of how journalists can use their mobile phone to help tell stories. It involves my work iPhone and a huge fire in Sheffield.

As I was about to cycle home from work in Sheffield city centre on Sunday 14th July I got a message from a friend with a photo of a big fire in Sheffield. I turned my back and saw behind me a huge thick black smoke cloud coming from the East of the city so (being a journalist!) I cycled towards it. After calling the newsroom to let them know, I took some photos on my phone and tweeted them and before long I was broadcasting live on my phone, describing the huge smoke cloud which was continuing to grow. I used the Google Maps app to find out which road I was on and then looked for updates on Twitter. South Yorkshire Fire Service were tweeting that the fire was at a plastic recycling centre in Attercliffe and that people nearby should stay indoors – this allowed me to update our audience live with the latest news. When I got closer to the scene I saw one of my old colleagues at ITV Calendar filming the fire and decided to do the same with my iPhone and I then uploaded the video to the BBC Look North system. Next, I recorded vox pops on my phone and sent them back to BBC Radio Sheffield to be used on air.

So in summary I used my work iPhone to call the newsroom to let them know about the story, broadcast live, record studio quality vox pops, take photos which I tweeted, find out the name of the road I was broadcasting from, check Twitter for updates from South Yorkshire Fire Service and record video for Look North.

In order to do our job as well as possible, journalists need to become really comfortable with using our phones to help us tell stories. 

You can listen to my first update below...

listen to ‘Sheffield Fire’ on Audioboo

iPhone. A Reporter's Friend.

I've written the following as a guest blog post for the website www.newmediamonster.co.uk which covers all things new media.

My work as a BBC reporter has been helped enormously by finally giving in and investing in an iPhone in November last year. I now heavily rely on it to help me tell stories. I’m often the radio car reporter, which means I drive a people carrier around my patch (Derbyshire and East Staffordshire) and broadcast live for the breakfast show on a range of light and hard news stories to do with fires, rubbish bins collections, hospital targets and Derby County to give you just a few examples. I use my iPhone from the start to the end of my working day.

After being woken by the phone’s alarm at 4:45am, I use it on the train to work to check Twitter, Facebook, and the BBC Derby and Derby Telegraph websites. I look for any stories we need to be covering on the BBC Radio Derby breakfast show and some background to the stories that I will be reporting on.

Once I’m at work and have printed off the details of the five or so stories I’ll be covering, I set off on the radio car and often use my phone to help me get to the locations. I use Google maps as a reassuring back up to the unreliable sat nav in the car.

If I have time when I get to the story, I often use the Google app on my phone to do some further research such as finding out statistics, for example I recently went to a story about the closure of Sure Start Centres in Derby and I used my phone to find out exactly what they are. I found a definition from the government website and used that in my live. I use this research to more effectively challenge the interviewee or to help set the scene when the presenter throws to me and before the interview starts. If I’m doing a story where distance is important, I’ll use Google maps to find out how far two places are apart.

After I’ve finished my live I take photos of the locations and people I interview and then email them from my phone to the presenter, producer and web team. It allows them to upload the photo straight to the BBC Radio Derby Facebook page which the presenter will then refer to on air and sometimes the snaps are used for articles on www.bbc.co.uk/derby. I also upload some of the more interesting photos on my personal twitter feed and sometimes record a video on my phone to enhance my blog posts, here’s a good example.

I’ve recently started using the app VR+ to record audio on location and then email it to the newsroom in seconds. The app came into its own recently when I was reporting from Birmingham Crown Court on the murder trial of Sylwia Ciapcinska. The court is a 25 minute walk to the Mailbox, the BBC building in the city, and I wanted to get my material on air as soon as possible once the verdict had been returned. I used the app to record my report on the court steps for the news bulletin and an interview with the police as well as the victim’s parent’s statement. I then emailed the audio to my colleagues in the newsroom in Derby which meant they very quickly had material for the news bulletins. It also meant that when I went to the Mailbox to do an interview about the trial with our drivetime presenter from one of the BBC Birmingham studios, I could focus on quickly typing out my script rather than dealing with the time-consuming process of sending back audio form the Birmingham newsroom.

The iPhone is an incredible aid to reporting and is an exciting way of enhancing the way we tell stories by, for example, adding photos and video. The next step for me is to use my phone to broadcast live which I know the radio car reporter at BBC 3 Counties Radio in Luton does. I’d encourage reporters and wannabe journalists to embrace new technologies like the iPhone. Don’t be put off by the hindrance of learning how to use the iPhone or even its price tag as it soon becomes a very big help indeed.

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!