Wondering aloud

In Which it's decided that if it's good enough for Charlie Brooker, it's good enough for me

2009-04-07T03:38:00.001-07:00

Picture the scene: Its June 2006, and Charlie Brooker's G2 piece on the pointlessness of flags has earned him some some angry feedback on the web. His response? A typically restrained piece called The great online dick fight.

On the online discussion about his article, he says:

"For half a nanosecond I was tempted to join in the discussion. And then I remembered that all internet debates, without exception, are entirely futile. So I didn't."

Later in June, Charlie tackles the fascination with social media, namely Myspace:

"Yeh it's not for me. I mean, I could go and create a page myself, but somehow I'd rather scrape my retina off with a car key."

But at least, he says, Myspace is better than the rest of the blogosphere who "just waste the world's time banging on and on about how important the 'blogosphere' is and how it spells the end of every old notion ever, when the truth is that... 99 per cent of the 'blogosphere' is rubbish and created by idiots."

Fast forward to 2008/9, and the birth of twitter, and suddenly maybe it isn't so bad.

Charlie is followed by nearly 32,000 people. Granted he only follows 25, but he still regularly tweets back and forth with his followers, shares photographs from his shows, gives details about what he's up and so on.

He also asked his followers for help with his show: "I will ask you all to do some 'citizen journalism' for me this week" (March 22).

So, maybe this is the best example yet of an anti-social media type getting board?

Well maybe not - the inverted commas on 'citizen journalism' may suggest he hasn't quite fully embraced it. A bit like the ones on 'blogosphere' which he says he "refuses to write without sneery ironic quote marks because I hate it and it's crap and I just don't want to know."

But still, it's saying something when someone with little more than disdain for social media is chipping in. If it's good enough for Charlie Brooker, it's good enough for me.

Capturing Ely - The Dusty Forge

2009-01-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Interview with Bev Frater, and pics from the Forge, Cowbridge Road West, Ely, Cardiff.

When the Dusty Forge pub was shut down in Ely nearly 20 years ago, few people were sorry to see it go.

A notoriously violent pub, The Forge was the scene of many a memorable bar brawl.

“It was a scary place, I remember we wouldn’t go anywhere near it,” Diane Campbell, 40, tells me. She and her family had particular reason to fear the Forge, given that her parents had emigrated to Ely from The West Indies, just as the Forge was becoming a popular haunt for certain sectors of the National Front.

The violence eventually became unmanageable, and on the advice of the police the council was forced to close the pub down.

Reopened in 1998, The Dusty Forge has changed, though the name remains. The bar is gone. So too are the pumps, the barmaids and, thankfully, the 'nationalists' and in their place stands the new Forge, reclaimed by the people of Ely to be put to good use.

The Dusty Forge is now a drop-in Information and Youth Centre providing a range of services for young people in the area. With its informal surroundings and accessible staff, the forge provides a safe atmosphere for young people to escape to if they need to get away, as well as providing practical life skills such as Duke of Edinburgh awards, helping with CVs and preparing for job interviews.

And in a beautifully ironic twist, Diane, who grew up fearing the pub, now works at The Forge as a Youth Worker.

“It is a sign that things have changed in some ways,” she said.

“But that isn’t to say there aren’t still a hell of a lot of problems here,” she added.

Speaking to Beverly Frater, the inspirational manager of the Forge, you get a feeling that the people of Ely need a place like this.

“There is a real lack of self esteem here [Ely], kids here have a belief that they can’t do anything.” She told me.

“I know young people who are walking the streets everyday with nothing to do. They’ve been expelled for one reason or another. Social problems, family problems – there’s just so much of it.

"There's an alcohol problem, and there are problems I think with family values. Some of the children have no respect for their parents - and their parents can't control them.”

Anyone who reads the local papers will know that there isn’t a lot of positive news coming out of Ely. Trying to write a good news story about the area can be challenging, Ely has long suffered from a local notoriety around Cardiff, synonymous as it is with drugs, gangs and anti-social behaviour.

The statistics for the area are undeniably bleak; as the second most ‘deprived’ ward in Cardiff, well over a third of the adult population are unemployed and nearly half of the young people in the area leave school without a single qualification.

And so it is that even in attempting to highlight the virtues of The Dusty Forge, a symbol of the positive, albeit slow, changes going on in the area, there are problems - the Forge, like seemingly everyone else, is battling with its finances.

Acquiring funding for local services is always a struggle, but local councillor Sue Goddard believes the amount of money that the Cardiff Liberal Democrats provide for Youth Services is not nearly enough.

“It is just not a high priority for the council,” she says.

“There are other things which the council sees fit to spend its money on. All Youth facilities have an annual dogfight for as much funding as they can get. They do a fantastic job with the money they have, but it’s a never-ending task trying to find funding for them.

“In my personal view- and this is not a political point because I don’t know if our lot [Labour] would put any more money into it- they do not provide enough money for places like the Forge.”

And as the economy descends into freefall and money gets harder and harder to come by, a small operation like the Forge suffers particularly hard, Coun Goddard describes it as like being in a "straightjacket".

There is no shortage of ideas and enthusiasm, Bev and her team provide that in abundance, but as the council tightens its belt even more, there is a fear that services like this will have to fight even harder for funding.

Ely needs some good news, The Dusty Forge, so long as it’s going, will do its best. It still stands as a beacon of hope to an area showing little sign of improving. But it needs money, and without investment the council risks watching the depressing outcomes for kids in Ely get even worse.

In which we meet the vulnerable journalist

2009-01-09T03:10:00.000-08:00

42 Days is Dead! wrote political journalist Nick Robinson on his BBC blog.

His subject – Brown’s plan to extend the detention without trial of ‘terrorist’ suspects - is an interesting one, and one that tends to trigger strong emotions from the public.

Until recently, what would’ve happened is that the journalist would give his interpretation, his view, his diatribe…whatever, safe in the knowledge that ‘them out there’ – Joe public – was at a safe distance. The journalist was the sole arbiter and if you didn’t like it? Oh well, he’s cleverer than you.

Not any more.

Today in the multimedia age, the public sphere (to use a slightly pompous journalism theory phrase) is open to anybody with an Internet connection; anyone with a view has the tools at their disposal to very publicly air it. What we say when we are journos in the future will be questioned, it will be discussed, debated and disagreed with - and this will all be done online and for anyone to see. Interaction is the new buzzword. The journalist can still say their bit, but they had better be able to back it up.

So, what did people say to Nick Robinson?

Well, over 300 people and counting have been commenting on and debating the issue on his blog:

But some people, anonymous behind their screen names, have really got inside the issues:

• Were the Tories right all along? (no.)

• Was 42 days merely all about ‘macho politics’?

What's more they question Nick's journalism - is he towing the Tory line? Will GB really let this one die etc etc.

There are those that will doubt the veracity of what is said by ‘Joe public’ – who, after all, is he? And what right does he have to question an experienced journalist - lets face it, there aren't much more prestigious roles in journalism than political editor of the BBC.

The fact is that he can, and will. And we have to be ready for it.

I thought I’d share a story about how the interactivity of journalist and consumer has already affected me.

I was working on The Argus in Newport and there was a huge fire that wiped out about ten houses. Absolutely gutted them – destroyed everything.

I, the keen but ultimately misguided journalist, legged it over to the train station thinking, rightly, that there would be big problems on the lines because of the blaze.

So I’m taking down quotes off angry passengers: “It’s a bloody joke. Railways are crap. Down with Labour” type of stuff.

I run back and type it out quick as possible:

‘Passengers are furious that trains were delayed and loads of people are stuck in Newport blah blah blah’

Feeling pretty smug about myself, I file my copy and go home eagerly awaiting tomorrows paper hoping my story A) makes the paper and B) has my name on it.

It does. Great!

Then it occurs to me – the article can be read online too! I go online to email my genius to everyone I know and then I look down to the ‘comments’ section…

Nightmare.

A reader has commented (I paraphrase):
“This article completely misses the point. OK, some people had small delays on their way home, well I’ve got news for you; ten families have had everything they own destroyed. So sorry if that means people's dinner gets cold.”

I’m embarrassed, because this person, whoever they are, is completely right. I had missed the point. My story looked ridiculous juxtaposed alongside stories of how people had lost everything they owned, how their pets had died and so on. And now everyone who read it online would see that the story was stupid and I was stupid.

Looking back, I’m surprised it made the paper. I cringe when I think of that story. Yet, were it not for the ‘blurring of the media boundaries’ (and the reader reader who knocked me off my high horse) I’d probably still think it was a good bit of journalism.

Journalists at all levels and in all roles are suddenly a lot more vulnerable. If what we do isn’t good enough, we’ll be told.

So is it a good thing? Well that’s for another post, but in a nutshell: Yes, when it’s not happening to me.

In which the internet upsets the BNP and undermines the law in the process

2008-11-30T16:38:00.000-08:00

So it turns out that old Rod Lucas, the Talksport guy, is a member of the British National Party.

Who would’ve known it aye? Oh well. Bye Rod.

For me the interesting question is: how do we know?

We know because of the nature of the internet. Anyone can go online if they wish (and I’m not advocating it) and find out from various sources the names, addresses, even mobile numbers and occupations of all the boys and girls on the BNP list. The internet makes this possible. And it has now even emerged that the names and addresses of people on trial in the Baby P case have begun to surface in the blogosphere.

All of this information is protected by law. Earlier in the year the BNP obtained an injunction at the High Court in Manchester that banned any publication of the list. But try telling that to a disgruntled former BNP subscriber with a list of current members and all of the wonderful new tools of the Web 2.0 era.

It’s easily done: “Hello is that the Times? I have something for you. Oh? You can’t run it? That’s a shame. To heck with it, I’ll jolly well publish it myself!” and voila, it’s out there for all to see. It makes a mockery of the law.

If these cases teach us anything it’s that the law cannot keep up with the web. No newspaper would publish any of this info; no broadcaster would be stupid enough to. If either did then they’d face some serious questions and a whopping great fine to boot.

This raises some interesting questions for media organisations in terms of managing their online content, particularly those who host there own bulletin boards and chatrooms.

Shane Richmond, Communities Editor of The Telegraph, in a stonkingly good lecture at Cardiff Uni this week, discussed the practicalities of moderating the Telegaph’s online content, and in particular My Telegraph, an online community of readers that blog, discuss and argue just about everything.

The Telegraph prides itself on the fact that its online content is free: Free Speech rules on My Telegraph, and that’s fine - except for one minor detail - the public, on the whole, are not overly knowledgeable on the intricate details of lets say, the laws of defamation and contempt of court. And so inevitably now and then someone posts something they’re not allowed to, hence BNP members emerge, hence Baby P details emerge.

So what is the responsibility of the news provider that hosts these forums? As Shane Richmond says: “This is an area that is still evolving, we’re still working these things out.”

Clearly, they have to show that they are acting responsibly- removing anything that clearly flouts the law. But the questions lie in how much and how aggressively they moderate. In a platform like the telegraphs where they receive over 2,000 comments a day from over 30,000 members, it’s unlikely to run smoothly if every single post/comment/blog has to first be moderated by the staff before publication. It would at least take a huge team of staff to make it run effectively, and this at a time when the media is looking to cut costs everywhere it can – chances of it wanting to hire teams of people to moderate online comments is slight.

Alternatively media companies can let all comments be posted and let all content sit on the site until it is flagged by another user as potentially harmful/illegal – this is, Shane says, what most of the legal advice they are getting suggests should be done.

The law is already trying to adapt to the changes that web 2.0 is making to the media. High Court Judge, Mr Justice Eady has suggested that online comments should be treated as slander rather than libel, e.g. they are to be treated much more as if they are conversational than say, the permanent form of a newspaper article.

But the law will have to change more. In some areas, quite radically. As Shane Richmond said to us: “The Contempt of Court laws will not survive the internet,” but how they adapt and change, is just as unclear as everything else during the web revolution.

In which we sing like Mark Bolan.

2008-11-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

It is telling that the Society of Editors conference this year had one main theme – the future of journalism in the digital revolution.

Sent to report the conference, the first thing that struck me was the demographic. Both in terms of speakers and guests the conference was, to quote Greg Dyke, ‘hideously white’. Jemima Kiss from Media Guardian put it brilliantly in an interview with a colleague of mine, Hannah Waldram, when she said:

“It’s the old school print guys. All of a certain age, all white and all the guys in power. It’s really disappointing there aren’t more women and more black people and Asians and Chinese. We need a much more diverse mix of people in our media and this conference doesn’t represent that at all. It’s quite an indictment I think.”

Malcolm Pheby, editor of the Nottingham Evening Post described the changes in their newsroom as ‘a quiet revolution’, with their journalists now learning to consider their evening deadlines online to be as important as their morning ones in print and all journalists writing simultaneously for online and print publications.

The notion of the changes to the media landscape being a ‘revolution’ came up in our lecture this week. Antony Mayfield, head of content and media at icrossing, is under no doubt that we are undergoing a web revolution:

“People in a revolution rarely realize they’re in one until it’s over. This one has just begun,” he told us.

No one knows where it is going, he said, or what it will mean for traditional media.

And so newsrooms are evolving, trying to harness the potential of all the new technologies at their disposal and avoid being destroyed by them. Again, Jemima Kiss summed it up nicely:

“This generation aren’t going to be around forever, but their publications or their brands should be around for a lot longer than they are. They’re the people that need to make the changes that are going to rescue their businesses…Nobody likes being taken out of their comfort zone - but they have to do it. There is no choice.”

JFK once said:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

We are undergoing a revolution. There’s no stopping it. It’s already having some pretty turbulent effects for the media (see my last blog). The key is learning to adapt and survive at a time when there is going to be, as Antony Mayfield put it, “constant change and rapid innovation.”

As Jemima Kiss said, there’s no choice. Learn to embrace the revolution. Make things as peaceful as possible, or things will get more and more violent.

I feel like I finally understand what TRex were talking about.

In which we almost lose hope, but don't.

2008-11-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

The current model for journalism is falling apart at the seams, it seems. The Christian Science Monitor, a US paper going since 1908 has just announced it’s going to be largely an online resource from now on after announcing losses of $18.9m in October. Time Inc has just slashed 6% of its workforce and looking at the sales figures for The Independent is like watching a good friend of yours dying a slow painful death.

And in the world of broadcasting- more misery. Mecom shares have dropped 20%, ITV shares have slipped under 30p for the first time. BSkyB are going to miss their 2010 subscriber targets.
And while the cracks in the walls of big media deepen, we all put on our party hats and celebrate the 10th birthday of the Blog. Cake anyone?

It’s no coincidence of course. Matthew Yeomans of Custom Communication believes there are three things that the blog has given the consumer that have fundamentally transformed the media landscape:

1) The power to publish.

For the first time Joe Public can reach a mass audience through social networks (Flickr, Twitter, Mento) and blogs (blogger/wordpress).

2) The power to participate.

Joe can now have a direct impact on consumer habits. He can leave an amazon reviews, he can offer his views on almost anything for free.

3) The power to choose.

Joe can avoid adverts now. Skyplus is crippling TV revenues. RSS Feeds can bring the news to you. Exactly what you want. When you want it.

And so we find ourselves here. The printed word disappearing down the toilet, washed away by the toilet duck of social networking and a plethora of new tools and alternative (free) voices.

But, and here’s where things get cheerier for the wannabe journo, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, wrote this week that he believes that the Internet has become a “cesspool of useless information.” The answer, he says, is ‘brands’. When people trust a brand they head to it for information. A trusted brand doesn’t lie to you. Doesn’t doctor images. Brands are how we avoid the cesspool. Brands are how big media companies are going to survive.

His point, I think, is demonstrated by the latest ABCe figures which reveal that during the current ‘economic downturn’ the number of people heading to the websites of the quality papers in the UK has risen dramatically. Guardian.co.uk, for example, has had over a million new unique users since the world’s banks went into meltdown.

What is essential then, is that the quality of the press remains high, both in print and online formats. The journalism has to be better than the rest of the ‘cesspool’, better than the bloggers. If the brand keeps its reputation then it will keep its readers.

Their survival is certainly not set in stone of course; Dan Farber’s grim analysis suggests that the investment level in the mainstream press is dropping. When investment drops, so inevitably does quality.

If quality drops, so does trust.

If trust drops, so do the readers.

If the readers drop, the company dies.

And so we will all end up fishing what we can out of the cesspool, and no one wants that.

In which we meet Daniel Meadows and enjoy a Digital Story.

2008-11-02T04:28:00.001-08:00

For those who haven’t already, go to Daniel Meadows website. Now. Do it now. Meadows is a proponent of Digital Storytelling, that is, a short multimedia tale told "with feeling" in the first person lasting appox. 2 minutes using around 12 pics. When done properly they can be "as tight as sonnets: multimedia sonnets from the people."

He has been called 'one of the icons of the digital story movement.' It isn't hard to see why. His collection of the digital stories that he has helped people to create accross Wales are an absolute joy. As for the man himself, he is the kind of guy who could inspire a bunch of cynical technophobes into believing that by playing with cameras they are personally responsible for the re-democratising of the world.

As one member of staff who shall remain nameless put it: ‘I want to be like him when I grow up’.

Meadows sees the digital story as a means of opening up the media to the people. A new way of giving the public a voice in the media world. He relates the stories to the notion of the ‘conversation’:

"If, in the digital age, we want everyone to be able to join in the "conversation" that Big Media promises to be, then we must intervene to help everyone -- and not just those who are computer savvy -- to speak the language of media." As I said in my last post, this is my big fear and where I find Meadows ideas so inspiring. The Digital Story exists purely to give those who would never normally work with cameras and film the chance to.

Meadows’ believes in the creative ability of human beings. Give them the platform and they will, he believes, create ‘stories’ that are equal to anything produced by the big, mainstream media.

We, the journalists, are here to facilitate – to use what we learn in the classroom to help those who don’t have these skills to get out there and tell their stories. In this sense the Digital Story, it seems to me, does not change the role of the journalist. We have always been facilitators. As Harry Evans famously said: “news is people,” our role is to give the people a voice. To get their voice out there if they don’t have the means to do it themselves.

In my last blog I asked how do we get people to interact with media? Meadows addresses this, albeit on a small and personal level. If you want people to get involved with media take the media to them. Show them that you don't need to have splashed out $$$$ to be able to do this stuff. As he poetically puts it:

“Otherwise the only slogan that'll be needed above the door of Broadcasting House is:

'Enter here only ye

Of the digital literati.'"

In which we wonder whether time is a factor

2008-10-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Alison Gow of the Liverpool Daily Post has posted her ‘lifecycle of a story’ blog, showing how, in her opinion, Web 2.0 can revolutionise the way a story finds its readers. It shows how by harnessing the potential of social networks for crowd sourcing, networking, photo-sharing etc, a journalists’ toolbox becomes that much better equipped. These tools, she says, have “improved the ways journalists can source, tell and share our news... how we can get our audience to be a part of it.” Quite right, I say, but the issue I wish to think about is time. I’m not alone here – look at the comments under Alison’s blog where an anonymous source writes:

"Would a reporter really be able to do all that in the time available to them, no matter how motivated and well trained they were? It sounds wonderful, but I don't see how people would be able to work on more than one story a day, and they don't have that luxury.

The workload in most newsrooms rarely allows for writing detailed, analytical article, let alone the rest of it."

This was the first thing that occurred to me. I’ve worked in regional newsrooms and generally have found that I’m always stretched for time. Anyone who has ever done a media/journalism degree will tell you that time and again the same things are lamented about the newsroom; journalists don’t have any time to properly check their facts; journalist’s resources are such that they are overworked. For a real savaging of this stuff look at Nick Davies’ website ‘Flat Earth News’ where he argues that reporters are often under such pressure that they sit re-writing press releases and agency copy all day.

So how is the journalist to fit into their day 'blog searches and translators'. Do they really have time to write their own blog and then trawl through every response to see if any are worth following up? When do they go through specialist message boards to rummage for information and then at what point do they begin to ‘film a video report’ to accompany their detailed final article?

Wishful thinking? Well, yes. But this is not a criticism.

As Alison herself points out, hers is an 'Ideal Scenario' opinion - every regional newspaper operates within the realms of the "possible, the achievable, and the viable.” She also makes clear that it isn’t possible for every journalist to do all of these things, all of the time. That isn’t the point. It is about the introduction of some of these ideas into mainstream media to see how it can benefit and also looking at new and improved ways of presenting news in multi-media formats that involve the reader.

It may even be that if properly embraced network journalism can actually speed up reporting, rather than be an extra burden, turning the ‘I don’t have time’ argument on its head. Journalists at BeatBlogging.org, for example, explain how their reporters are using social networks to speed up their sourcing. When researching a story -about students say -no longer does the journalist have to trawl through the phonebook or doorstep, but they can identify people immediately and accurately. Twitter, they explain, can help contact experts in a field much quicker than if they had to do it the old school way. Jo Wadsworth, a hack and online enthusiast from Croydon is another to argue network journalism can speed up journalism: “It's a snowball effect - once you get your readers on side with Web2.0, they will bring you stories,” she says.

The time argument is one that will crop up again and again. But I think it may be the case that it is those who are afraid of it, that will claim time does not permit them to use these tools.

In which we learn that the conversation is not as loud as it possibly could be.

2008-10-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

Citizens are increasingly active in the media sphere, so much so that Bowman, Shayne and Willis argue that the Internet makes everybody “a potential media outlet.” Dan Gilmor reckons the Internet will blur the lines between producers and consumers: “The communication network itself will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few,” he claims. Pavlik's another with this view: “journalism will be transformed into a two-way dialogue responsive to the views of the public. In this way…democracy will be better served,” he boldly states.

But is this true?

In a recent exercise at Cardiff University, we estimated how many people were using the Internet for the purposes of interacting with a news source. Most of us reckoned it was loads. Of course, however, it isn’t. As many fellow bloggers have pointed out- the number of people interacting with their news sources is minuscule compared to the numbers using it simply to consume - and this is the UK, where Internet access is widely available.

This got me thinking…

Who are the people that are blogging? Who's commenting? Who even has the Internet?

Who is the ‘conversation’ between?

After all, as Pavlik points out:

“As the Internet becomes a vital part of the system of communication…it is necessary that the public have universal access to it. If the public cannot participate in the system of political communication, then it cannot be effective.”

It won’t shock you to learn that if you’re living in, say, Africa, then your part in the conversation is a small one – The Internet Society claim that only 5% of the population has Internet access at all. Whereas, if you’re privileged enough to have been born in the US, then potentially your role is bigger- about 70% bigger in fact, with nearly three quarters of North America being online.

Back home, it's the poorest in the UK that don’t have the Internet. What about their part in this dialogue? At least here good old Mr Brown has pledged to change this. His initiative, to ensure that every child has the Internet at home over the next few years, has been roundly applauded. But, and this is the key point, just because someone has the Internet doesn’t mean that they are going to use it as a means to actively involve themselves in the media sphere - again, most people simply use it as another means to consume news.

It is a beautiful notion that the Internet will become a platform for everybodies voice, but is it not a reality that simply having the Internet is not enough, people need to be encouraged to participate. This point is put very succinctly by Neil Selwyn:

"This is a technical fix to a social problem. You could use the analogy of voting. People don't vote for many reasons and it's not just that they can't get down to the polling booth."

The potential for the Internet to open up journalism is unquestionably huge. The excitement from the afore-mentioned authors is not unfounded. The way I see it there are two hurdles: firstly; enable everyone to join in the conversation by getting the web out there. Democracy, both local and international will only be served by the Internet if everyone can participate.

Secondly; once people have plugged in - how do you get people interacting? How do we get people down the polling booth?

Politicians have been struggling with that one for years. I'll think it over and get back to you.

Any ideas?