‘Journalism in the age of mobile and social media’ gives insight into the current culture of reporting by Nic Newman, a digital strategist and founding member of the BBC News website.

Newman tells us that there is a ‘dreadful state of affairs’ in news broadcasting now that social media has burst upon the scene and normal people can shape and share their own narratives.

Amusingly he also says that news is increasingly celebrity obsessed and ‘many of my journalistic heroes sound increasingly shrill and out of touch’…..at which point he puts up this slide…….

Ouch!

Here’s the video……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDgLY8s3UHI

Newman tells us that the growth of social media drives how people use news and therefore how it is made.

If news isn’t shared, he says, it has no value and people only share simplistic stories that do not need interpretation or analysis…..however very long, indepth reports do get picked up and read…it is the medium sized articles that are ignored…all too often those provided by the BBC:

“Too much reporting is 700-word articles that everyone else has got,” Delaney [from Buzzfeed] said. He explained that the site either published articles of less than 500 words, or else more in-depth and analytical features of around 1,200 words.

‘As you can see, much of what Delaney says about the ‘middle zone’ of 500 to 800 words makes sense. The BBC seemed to be the one publisher whose articles were consistently in this range. These were almost all news stories rather than features, analysis or commentary.’

The BBC is not providing the context, analysis and nuance for its news…and so not really providing the news if it cannot be interpreted by the reader in the fullest sense….they are especially guilty of this on radio bulletins.

Of course much of the time that suits the BBC as to provide such context would undermine the narrative….as with Thatcher and mine closures…..let’s not mention that the NUM called Labour’s pit closure policy disastrous…it ‘decimated the industry’ with ‘madhouse economics’.

And so on for many other subjects that the BBC try to use to bash the Tories with.

However the BBC is storming Twitter:

BuzzFeed and BBC revealed as February’s most-shared news sites on Facebook and Twitter

On Twitter the BBC has the highest number of shares, with just under 25 million in February.

“There are different motivations for sharing and different relationships. Twitter is public, there are professional relationships mixed with personal ones there and those dynamics create a different type of sharing atmosphere and I think without Twitter you’d lose a lot of the fast reaction to news stories.”

140 characters on Twitter…..might be worrying if that that is where people get their news from and don’t bother to read any further….very open to abuse or misinterpretation…….ie…news from Gaza….frequently twisted by BBC journo’s bias….but of course the Tweets go around the world and become fact and stay ‘fact’ as any complaints and corrections get no where near the same coverage.

As noted here by ‘Is the BBC biased’ it took over two years to get a final decision on a complaint about BBC coverage of the Middle East.

The story though is already history and has become part of the legend, the narrative of the Middle East….a fact that will keep being brought up by internet searches ad infinitum.

The BBC knows this happens….hence its knowingly inaccurate report by Chris Cook on Newsnight that told us the Government was ‘suppressing a report on immigration that was incendiary and undermined its case for immigration control’.

Trouble was that was complete nonsense…the government wasn’t suppressing anything….and the report said nothing new that hadn’t already been published in 2012.

However the story was splashed across the headlines and went ‘viral’….it is now established fact that the government suppressed an incendiary report and that immigration is beneficial to us all.

The BBC’s job is done….they lied, they knew they lied, but it doesn’t matter because once the lie gets out there is no way to recall it.

When the legend becomes fact print the legend.

This is the full report from Newman  on-line:

JOURNALISM MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS 2014

John Sweeney spends 8 days undercover in North Korea.

BBC News head of programmes Ceri Thomas said: “This is an important piece of public interest journalism.” Asked whether that justified putting student lives at risk, he replied: “We think it does.”

This is John Sweeney trying to defend his actions (and failing):

North Korea is….‘A state that is more like Hitler’s Germany than any other state in the world, It is extraordinarily scary, dark and evil….. We maintain all of the students were aware of the risk.’

Clearly not………

BBC Panorama breached safety guidelines by sending undercover team into North Korea using LSE students, internal report finds

A controversial BBC Panorama programme which sent an undercover team into North Korea, pretending to be a group of LSE students, has breached a number of editorial guidelines.

A report by the corporation’s Trust said the BBC failed to ensure the students were aware of the risks involved in the trip.

Although the Trust believed there was a ‘strong public interest’ in the broadcast, it said the BBC ‘failed to consider a number of important issues and risks, and failed to deal with them appropriately’.

In its report published today, the Trust’s editorial standards committee said: ‘The provision of information to the students who took part in the trip was insufficient and inadequate, and meant the daughter of the complainant did not possess the knowledge necessary to give informed consent.’

The BBC accepts the Trust’s decision but….‘ it said that at the time the programme was being made, it believed they were being treated ‘fairly’.’

So…it doesn’t accept the decision then.

I would have thought it completely obvious that you should not exploit non-BBC staff in this manner and take such risks with a state that you acknowledge is ‘ more like Hitler’s Germany than any other state in the world.’

What did we learn from Sweeney’s little indulgence in the Public interest?….not a lot.

All the usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork….

The BBC has certainly turned rightward since Mason left…..because he left.

Glenn Greenwald…flogging state secrets to a newspaper.  State secrets stolen by Snowden who was probably a Russian agent and is now safely back in the USSR.

Nice work Glenn.

Yes Mehdi, you did write the same in 2009…hope you got some royalties from the boy wonder.

And look…the opportunistic issues junky has no shame:

Looks like Crow was equally impressed by the young whippersnapper…or is that indigestion?

Still someone is impressed by Jones….

The same Billy Bragg who thought Wedgie Benn wasn’t a Marxist…..never mind that Benn thought Benn was a Marxist:

‘….after Caroline Benn gave him a copy of the Communist Manifesto, Benn wrote: “Without having read any Communist text, I had come to Marx’s view.” ‘

Guess that sums up the problem….people who think Benn wasn’t a Marxist and people who think the BBC isn’t leftwing.

Who is telling who fairytales?

Owen Jones keeps posting these photos of him with iconic leftwing figures hoping some of their glory will rub off on him no doubt…..all I can say is don’t sit next to Owen Jones……

Owen Jones is right wing isn’t he?

…as is Ed Balls of course.

We must understand the BBC as a pre-eminent state propagandist and censor by omission, says John Pilger.

Yet another comedian gets into politics (thanks to nofanofpoliticians for pointing this out)

The ‘Firebrand’ Owen Jones says the BBC is biased to the right…no really….though I’m pretty certain this is a leaked script from the BBC’s right of centre ‘Now’ show….

It’s the BBC’s rightwing bias that is the threat to democracy and journalism

The claim of ‘liberal bias’ is a clever fairytale that allows the right to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda

This is from a person who thinks Marx has all the answers….probably thinks Marx is right wing as well!

 ‘Chavs of the World Unite!!!!  You have nothing to lose but your Burberry caps!!!!’

Jones is just another dodgy charlatan…..plagiarising others work…and saying nothing new…spot the difference:

Jones today:

The claim of ‘liberal bias’ is a clever fairytale that allows the right to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda

Mehdi Hasan (surprise!) in 2009:

The accusation that the BBC is left-wing and liberal is a calculated and cynical move by the right to cow the corporation into submission.

He claims the Left say nothing to defend the BBC….

‘….the left’s reticence is symptomatic of a wider phenomenon – of a right with few scruples about going on the offensive, while the left adopts a relentlessly defensive posture.’

Hasan said:

‘….it is time for liberals and the left to fight back and force the BBC to acknowledge its real bias.’

Why not just reprint Hasan’s article?….oh they did…with Jones’ name on it.

Hmmm…the BBC has so many ‘friends’ on the Left who are more than ready to leap to its defence Jones is either lying or delusional.

Leader: The need for the BBC is as great today as it has ever been

We must defend the BBC from Murdoch and death by a thousand Tory cuts

The BBC fightback begins   By George Eaton – 14 November 04:01   In tomorrow’s New Statesman, BBC director of television Roger Mosey and Joan Bakewell ride to the corporation’s defence.

Did like his final flourish:

For too long, the right has got away with weaving a fairytale of BBC leftwing bias. Until the left starts complaining – and loudly too – the BBC’s agenda will be shaped by supporters of government, big business, the free market and western foreign policy. That does not just subvert honest journalism: it undermines our democracy.

That’ll be the BBC that relentlessly pounds Big Business, the Tories and Western Foreign policy…going so far as to suggest Jihadis might be justified!

Which is why Harriet Harman felt the need to say:

The BBC is a loved and trusted institution, but it has enemies waiting to pounce.

So the Right are the enemy then…not the driving force behind the BBC?

This is the person who loves the BBC so much that she thinks it shouldn’t have its enormous political, commercial and social power reined in:

“Certainly, several media organisations would be affected by a 15 per cent cap,” it read. “But there is one for which such an insistence upon plurality would be devastating. That is the BBC.”

So the presumably left wing Labour deputy leader thinks that the ‘right wing’ BBC should be allowed to run riot…that’s very generous of her.

Signs of delusion:

When the financial system went into meltdown, BBC interviews were dominated by City voices like stockbrokers and hedge fund managers, rather than critics of a sector that had plunged the country into disaster

So no one from Occupy was ever heard on the BBC?  Never mind Giles Fraser being given a job there…and let’s not forget Paul Mason….wasn’t it all over for Capitalism a while back on the BBC?

Take the privatisation of the NHS: it is barely given any coverage by the BBC.

WTF….ha ha ha……the reforms of the NHS never mentioned on the BBC in critical terms?…..Owen you are kidding….yourself, not us.

No doubt he thinks welfare doesn’t get a mention either.

Not saying Jones is ignorant, opportunistic ‘issues’ junky…but he clearly is.

The same goes for foreign issues, too. When Israel invaded Gaza in 2009 the BBC provoked uproar when it refused to give the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal any airtime.

Yep…the BBC is pro-Israel.  Fairy tales?…..Owen those drugs must really be kickass.

Tory politicians favour the BBC as a useful recruitment service too. After Andy Coulson was driven from No 10, David Cameron replaced him with the then BBC news controller Craig Oliver.

Tory politicians?  Cameron is no Tory….and he has long kowtowed to the BBC’s agenda not the other way round….turning the Conservative Party into a party without conviction or values.  Oliver was appointed purely as a sop to the BBC…..as Coulson was News Corp. and hated by the Left.

Patten…a pro EU Tory wet, Nick Robinson..gone native…..and look who the BBC employs ”off the street’…all who have the same mindset….wet Tory Portillo, Diane Abbot, Stacey Dooley, Giles Fraser, Alistair Campbell, Jacqueline Smith….never mind all the ‘comedy’.

Up the workers! Mugs.

Hilariously the worst criticism of the BBC comes from the Left…..so who is trying to influence the BBC’s agenda and damage democracy?…and this is just from the New Statesman:

By giving a platform to climate change sceptics, the BBC is misleading the public

The BBC is colluding in the government’s attack on benefit claimants

Why is Nigel Farage on Question Time so often?

BBC will play a “short clip” of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

What can be done about the BBC’s raw deal for migrants?

Savile: Denialism and the “grooming the nation” delusion

Why is Andrew Neil so keen to bash the New Statesman?

As Gaza is savaged again, understanding the BBC’s role requires more than sentiment

Memo to Fleet Street: it isn’t just the BBC that makes mistakes

It’s all about Jimmy Bowen…life that is:

Jeremy Bowen: I know there’s trouble in the Middle East when I need my flak jacket, gas mask and Kevlar pants

When the journalist becomes the story….. we all get bored.

Journalists in the Middle East need to be mobile. Visits to presidential palaces, foreign ministries and embassies all matter but being on the streets is the best way to get to the heart of the matter. My physio tells me I will stop limping fairly soon. Then I’ll be able to cycle and, after that, run.

Yawn.

It does all seem to be about the ‘Bowen’ rather than the news for Jimmy….though he’s not shy about lecturing world leaders on how to run their affairs and castigating the West for invading Iraq:

The BBC’s Middle East editor on John Kerry striking the wrong tone over Ukraine, and remembering the Aleppo souks.

I am not proposing a reprise of the row over UN Security Council resolutions or whether or not the United States, the UK and their allies were acting legally or illegally but it is important to remember that many countries did not buy the west’s version, so it has to expect a sceptical response when it scolds others.

And of course Bowen has a very high opinion of his own ‘journalism’:

Here we go, a new week of BBC bias to capture, and right here is where you capture it!

Today had on Sir David Higgins urging us to buy into the HS2 lunatic express scheme…the quicker the better….time, as he said, is money!

Jim Naughtie didn’t press Higgins hard at all….and seemed to accept the basic premise that HS2 is the best way of spending £80 billion that the nation doesn’t have….never mind flood defences, road maintenance, broadband, improving the existing rail network and so on…all of which would be less controversial, far easier to accomplish and far more beneficial to far more people than spending £80 billion on ‘elite’ business executive’s own private train…which is what HS2 is in reality….just another version of the ‘Royal Train’.

Perhaps not bias but bad reporting or journalism not to challenge Higgin’s assertions….however the default position of not testing the claims results in the same effect of being favourable to HS2.

His claim that we must crack on with the project, which he is in charge of, otherwise costs will rise is an obvious political trick….not so obvious that Naughtie tackled him on it.

Higgins tells us that HS2 is “vital for the future of the country” and said it could be “a catalyst for fundamental change”.

No objections to that from Naughtie.

Higgins knows the project is in trouble, massively expensive and benefiting a select few and so his answer is the same answer that hucksters all over the world use…‘Buy now whilst stocks last’…..’Buy now as these fantastic bargain prices can’t last much longer!‘

Never mind consultation or the approval process…never mind what Parliament or the people think….drive it through, time is money.

The reality is Higgins doesn’t really care about the costs just with getting his pet project going and his well paid job, and his legacy,  secured for years to come.

The real way to save money and not waste it..is not to do HS2….and what should really damn HS2 is that the backstabbing Vince Cable supports it….

Business Secretary Vince Cable said in an interview with the Observer on Sunday that there was a “compelling case” to speed up the extension of the HS2 rail link northwards.

The man who thinks a mansion tax is a workable, sensible idea.

The BBC’s web report pads Higgin’s claims out with more pro voices:

A Department for Transport spokesman said Sir David’s report “confirms that HS2 is the right project at the right price” but added that the report challenges the government to deliver the project more quickly and more effectively.

The Transport Secretary is due to respond to the report in Parliament later.

Shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh said: “David Higgins has made it clear that there are significant savings to be made if David Cameron gets a grip of this project and stops all these delays.

“The government must now act so this scheme can be delivered under budget.”

So everyone is in favour then…such a brilliant project.

The report does mention some opposition:

‘Waste of money’

Opponents of the scheme question how easy it will be to speed up the construction of HS2.

Richard Houghton, spokesman for HS2 Action Alliance said: “Bringing forward work will not be as simple as it sounds.

“Unless there are plans to circumnavigate the statute book, then a separate Hybrid Bill will have to be introduced.”

HS2 Action Alliance, which represents a coalition of groups opposed to the new rail link, says the project will be a “huge waste of money” and claims it will cause severe environmental damage, with the first phase alone having an impact on 130 protected wildlife sites.

That’s it then for the opposition….no real analysis….just ‘Not as simple as it sounds…and a few badgers might be inconvenienced’…….But then the BBC ducks back to the pro-side again….

Robbie Owen of Pinsent Masons solicitors, whose clients broadly support HS2, told the BBC that Sir David’s report was “incisive and powerful”.

“I think, in all, this [report] will hopefully help forge a much stronger cross-party consensus for the project,” said Mr Owen, the head of infrastructure planning and government affairs at the law firm.

“It’s crucially important to transform the economic shape of the UK and to try to rebalance the country away from all the emphasis on the South East,” he said. “We just can’t carry on as a country eking things out in terms of our infrastructure.”

The BBC’s report isn’t exactly dealing with the issues and is giving the pro-HS2 side a readymade platform to push their agenda unchallenged.

Just for interest here’s something from Al Jazeera…hosted by possibly the world’s most untrustworthy journalist, Mehdi Hasan….a devout Muslim, a Muslim preacher no less…but who tells us he is ‘secular and progressive‘.

Whilst the subjects are of interest Hasan probably isn’t the best person to be adjudicating over them as he has a dog in the fight being essentially a hardline Muslim activist himself….though that is a judgment based on past experience as I haven’t had time to listen to any of these debates yet….still interesting all the same.

A selection from ‘Head to Head’:

Head to Head is Al Jazeera’s new forum for ideas, hosted by Mehdi Hasan. In each episode, Hasan asks probing, hard-hitting questions and goes head to head with a special guest to  tackle some of the big issues of our time in front of an opinionated audience.

From Feedback……

Who decides the news agenda?

Richard Clarke, the Editor of the BBC Radio newsroom, on the stories that make the news.

Deciding the agenda…’We have our own ideas…but also use the Today programme, World at One, and PM, all of which influence us.‘

‘We test each other’s judgement….I make a much better decision when editing if I test my judgement against the rest of my team.’

So they test whether a story is suitable for the news by bouncing ideas off each other….who all think alike.

It was suggested that the BBC is becoming more ‘Tabloid’, covering too many sex and crime stories and that listeners are off to Al Jazeera for real world news……but also there was too much bad news…could there be time set aside for ‘good news’?

The reply…‘No….that would be manipulating the news.’

From that are we to believe they think they don’t manipulate the news?

Clarke says…‘When stories happen we HAVE to report them’.

Of course they do…..except when they choose not to…such as on Israel/immigration/Europe/inconvenient climate change bad news/good news on the economy.

The final question was ‘Are you interested in what listeners think?’

Answer….hmmm…not really…but he does read the duty log [of comments] every morning…probably for a good laugh.

Another Feedback programme covered similar ground……

How Broadcasting House interacts with its listeners

This programme looked especially at ‘Broadcasting House’ on Sunday mornings.

It asks….‘Do listeners have any real input….has there been anything in today’s broadcast suggested by listeners?’

Answer….‘No….but we read their comments with great interest.’

Yes…of course.

The answer continued….‘It’s quite trivial and silly things that get people going….such as whether English is being spoken on a train as raised by Nigel Farage.’

Yes…quite trivial and silly to worry about being a stranger in your own land.

Roger Bolton says ‘Listeners just want to be heard.’

Answer….’Yes….They want to know they are being listened to….that it’s not just a bunch of old suits paying themselves too much money at the BBC when the country wants to talk about these issues….they are battering the door down to tell us what the country is like.’

But is the BBC listening..to all the different voices…or just those of a similar persuasion? In my experience any ‘listening’ and response is purely on the basis that the listener is ignorant or prejudiced and it is the BBC’s job to re-educate them on the benefits of immigration or the peaceful and tolerant nature of Islam and the apparent Nasty Fascist side to UKIP.

The final point was interesting as it feeds into, and is the antithesis of, the comment made by Clarke in the first programme when he said he bounced his ideas off his own team…..in this programme it is suggested by Bolton that programmes and news broadcasts that feed off each other lead to the same agenda doing the same stories in the same way…they need to connect with the audience…and to respond to it.

Just don’t raise the subject of BBC bias.

Plenty of coverage for this BBC report:

Sue Lloyd Roberts hears how a religious sect that believes in Aliens and the pursuit of pleasure is trying to help victims of female genital mutilation in Burkina Faso

FGM, Clitoraid and The Pleasure Hospital

I heard the report on FOOC, it’s been on Newsnight and it’s in the Independent (as above) as well.

On FOOC we heard that FGM was a practise carried out by Asian, African and Middle Eastern people….wonder which ones exactly.

This though made me laugh, the presenter’s description of the ‘Raëlians‘ as a ‘bizarre religious sect’…

The initiative for Clitoraid and the Pleasure Hospital comes from the Raëlians, a bizarre religious sect who believe in UFOs, and that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure.

And Christianity or Islam aren’t bizarre religious sects?

Is not the concept of an unseen God controlling everything not bizarre in itself never mind the details…creating the Earth in 6 days, women made from a rib, feeding the 5000 with one hamburger, burning/talking bushes, virgin births, coming back to life…flying to Heaven on a winged horse?

Would the BBC admit Islam is ‘bizarre’?  They might certainly go that far in speaking about Christianity if given the chance.

Why do the Raëlians get singled out as ‘bizarre’?

Raëlians are individualists who believe in sexual self-determination.^[4] As advocates of the universal ethic and world peace, they believe the world would be better if geniuses had an exclusive right to govern in what Rael terms Geniocracy.

Sounds a lot like the BBC.

The ‘pursuit of pleasure’.…an appalling way to lead a life.