Citizen newsgathering
| 12:07 UK time, Friday, 20 October 2006
So just how much should we listen to you - our audience? It's a question all of us involved in the media are pondering right now.
Just a few years ago, audience involvement was restricted to letters of complaint, requests for record on the radio - and of course the staple of radio, the phone-in. Now technology means feedback is instant - via text, email and . A few months ago, - our very own polling of "hits" and "misses". And my colleagues in TV have previously written about "The Pulse" - instant audience feedback about the stories we carry on the Six and Ten O'Clock News on ±«Óãtv One.
So we know what some of you think about what we do - good and bad. But how big a role should that play in the decisions we make?
I was the home news editor on July 7th last year. We recieved 20,000 emails, more than 1,000 mobile phone pictures and dozens of bits of video; it was your phone-calls that alerted us to what was going on when the authorities weren't quite sure what to make of the "power-outage" on the underground. It transformed our coverage - and our view of the role you can play in our output.
Now, whenever there's a story, our readers, viewers and listeners send in pictures from the scene - whether it's the explosion at the Buncefield oil terminal, or the attacks on trains in Mumbai in India. For news - as news editor - it's a magnificent resource to draw on. It's not often we're on the scene when something is happening - our cameras usually get there after the event; we film the aftermath. Very often, you are in the thick of it.
It's been called citizen journalism - I prefer to think of it as citizen newsgathering.
It's an important distinction - and one that goes to the heart of the debate. It's vital our stories engage with the audience - but we need to be careful our running orders don't become a 'Top of the Pops' of news (look to that!).
Yesterday more than 400,000 of you read a shot of a walrus feeding on clams on the sea floor winning a photography prize. It was the second most read story of the day - but it doesn't mean we should run it in on the 10 O'Clock News. What all this information gives us are pieces of the jigsaw - whether it's The Pulse, the live stats from the News website or the stories that engage the listeners to the Radio Five Live phone-in. All should inform our decision making about the stories we do - but we must also do the stories that are significant but which may not be particularly exciting.
Today, the 25 heads of state and government from the European Union are meeting in Finland - top of the agenda are new ways to make energy supplies more secure, relying less on climate-changing fossil fuels. The story matters - and today we'll report from Siberia and here in the UK, as well as from Finland in an attempt to tell you why. I could be wrong - but I'm not sure it'll be the hot topic of debate among Newsbeat's audience on Radio One, or the most read story on the News website (at the time of writing it was the 9th most popular in Europe and doesn't appear in the worldwide top 10). But it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. We should - we must.
The challenge is to to do it in a way that means something to you. Let me know if we succeed - that's the best audience involvement.
Comments
"So we know what some of you think about what we do-good and bad. But how big a role should that play in the decisions we make?"
You mean how much should you pander to your audience? The very fact that you'd even consider it proves your lack of integrity as so called "journalists." If you had confidence in the quality of your product, you wouldn't compromise an inch especially since you are a near monopoly with guaranteed funding. Commercial networks might have a dubious excuse to relax their professional standards in order to maintain audience share as a necessity to keep their sponsors happy and their owners satisfied that they are receiving a reasonable return on their investment but that clearly isn't the case here.
So is ±«Óãtv's mission to accurately report the news and focus on what is most newsworthy or to win popularity contests by skewing it so that it pleases the greatest number in its audience? Do you even know? Do you even know anymore why it matters? By the way, what's the latest on Sir Paul McCartney's marital difficulties? Some large proportion of Britain might want to know.
Hang on a minute Mark, surely if people are interested it is to some extent 'newsworthy'? We can't expect news to stay as it always was - the world is changing, technology is changing, and so is the way news is reported. If people who are actually on the ground can see what is happening, why are their images and views less valid than journalists'?
I'm fed up of all this sanctimonious posting about how rubbish the ±«Óãtv is. They may not always get it right, but they're trying their best. If you don't like the ±«Óãtv, stop watching it. At least then the rest of us could actually discuss the subject of the blogs, instead of wading through all the 'we hate the ±«Óãtv' posts.
Jodi (#2): just because people are interested in something does not makes it newsworthy. Internet sites more often get hits because they are entertaining than because they are of serious topical import.
Tracking public interest may be a useful exercise in measuring the current zeitgeist but the news should reflect what is relevant to people's lives and not popular whims; otherwise the news would be led every night with videos of people dancing on treadmills or exploding cola bottles.
"...surely if people are interested it is to some extent newsworthy"
And they are doing a bang up job reporting on the marital breakup of Sir Paul whats-his-name. I give them credit for digging through the haystack to find the needle, no matter how rusted, dull, or seemingling insignifigant, since it's surely important enough to be newsworthy to someone somewhere.
"We can't expect news to stay as it always was-the world is changing, technology is changing, and so is the way news is reported."
You don't say!
"If people who are actually on the ground can see what is happening, why are their images less valid than journalists?"
Well, if they are trained observers, can present an accurate picture in context, and can give informed unbiased observations about it, then they are just as valid...perhaps even more so, given the quality of training some in so called "schools of journalism" have received. Which brings us back to the mob, the pub, and those with an agenda to sell. So which is it, six hundred thousand dead babies in Iraq due to the sanctions prior to the invasion and lying "journalists" in Lancet this week who left them out of their calculations because their article was designed to influence public opinion now, or is it a highly respectable medical journal doing its job carefully and thousands of lying Iraqis and sympathizers on the ground who tried to influence public opinion before the invasion by presenting an entirely false view of what was happening? Which of the people on the ground were the liars or do we forget what ±«Óãtv and others said a few years ago because technology and news reporting has changed? Maybe one of the changes is that truth has become a relative thing hostage to the moment as George Orwell postulated. Or maybe some people with short memories and flared emotions just wish it that way. It would be far more convenient for them if evidence of past efforts could simply be discarded forever...as down a memory hole.
Hello World,
I am a seer along the Pacific rim that is seismically connected to North Korea. Around Oct 6, I started feeling vibrations in my feet and becoming nauseated. I learned later that weekend that North Korea had detonated a device underground. Every seven hours after, I felt another shockwave of nausea and vibration. I am afraid that the next blast is going to destabilize the entire Pacific ring of fire. Nuclear weapons have the potential to split continents and cause massive earthquakes the likes of which man has never seen. The cost of life would be unfathomable if this were to occur. We all affect each other whether it's something as simple as brightening a person's day with a smile or belittling them into submission. The same thing happens on a global scale. The collective fear of nuclear weapons has driven many to believe that it will occur. Can we change it so that instead of fearing the worst, believing in the best? Can we all focus our positive ideas and thoughts towards these weapons being duds and not splitting the planet in half?
Sincerely yours,
The love of life
Hey Mark,
I don’t remember reading that this editor intended to hand over the reins of the ±«Óãtv news to ordinary citizens. Nor did he say that the standards would be relaxed. Why are you so afraid of the opinions of others – especially when you are happy to express your own uninformed opinion? If the audience/participants are pleased by this process it’s because they are being included in the public conversation. It’s not a popularity contest – it’s actually a democratic human right. Continue to enjoy…given your presence and passion…you clearly enjoy this participatory opportunity.
Debbie (6), if my opinion is uninformed, perhaps it is do to spending far to much time getting the news from ±«Óãtv. In the future, I will try to become better informed by getting more of my news from elsewhere...like Fox.