Citizen Journalism – where are the limits?

Welcome to News at Ten with Mary Nightingale and Steve Scott and Bob from Barry island, Mrs Smith from Newscastle, 13-year-old Jay from Surrey and Rover the Golden Retriever from Bristol.

Is this how the news should be introduced?

When you watch the news, hear the news, view the news, where is it coming from? News broadcasters often feature many videos and  photos from the public to add to their news stories. But is this watering down the news? Or is it enhancing people’s interpretation of the news?

Famous examples of citizen journalism…

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Above is the wreckage of the Airbus passenger plane which ditched into the Hudson River in New York. The first photos and video collected of the accident were collected and sourced via citizen journalists or in other words people there who saw it happen.

Here is footage of the plane skidding the water which was captured by a US Coast guard: BBC News

– Other examples included the London 7/7 bombings and probably the most rememberable pictures and videos are those of the planes going into the Twin Towers.

All these catastrophic events have a similarity, they are all fluke, spontaneous events. A skilled journalist with ethical training would only have got there after the initial events had happened. Of course citizen journalists contribute to many other kind of stories but most often the best photos and video by members of the public are when people are in the right place at the right time.

So how do the BBC view the citizen journalism?

I asked Tim Hubbard, Weekend Editor at BBC Cornwall whether broadcaster, primarily the BBC, rely on citizen journalists?

Not only Tim celebrates and encourages citizen journalism.  It is a trend which is being taken more seriously across the BBC. A recent article in The Guardian  discusses how citizen journalist network Global Voices is currently working closely with the BBC. The Beeb will engage with blogging posts from the network, while Global Voices’s managing editor, Solana Larsen, will get involved in news production in the BBC’s newsroom.

Ivan Signal, executive director for the network emphasises its significance:

The idea that citizen journalism is somehow opposed to, or in conflict with, traditional journalism is now clearly past. It’s evident that both exist in a symbiotic relationship with one another, with many opportunities to collaborate on the creation of news, storytelling and distribution of content.

The BBC realises that in the 24 hour news appetite we have today they have to build good relationships with citizen journalists, who equally play just as vital a role with supplying the news to the public.

So to leave the last word to Tim Hubbard, how does citizen Journalism affect journalism?

But to leave a question for discussion, what about the ethical regulations we have learnt from our course at University College Falmouth. Without it, would we have written the same bulletins and stories? No. So is it safe to gather images from people who are unaware of what can and cannot be shown on the web, tv or heard on the radio?

The Great News Gathering Experiment

 Here was the plan:

As I was called up to attend a humanitarian disaster with ShelterBox. I’d use the skills that I’d gained from my broadcast journalism degree and see if I could get news back to the UK faster and more comprehensively than would otherwise be possible from traditional broadcasters.

– I’d take a compact but HD professional video camera with me to get footage that could be edited and uploaded to an FTP server. I’d also be able to bring back video in high quality to make an ancillary news package that isn’t so time dependent.

– I’d take a twitter enabled mobile phone and twitter as an aid worker throughout the whole period.

– I’d also be available as much as possible to give telephone interviews.

– I had intended to email back a few written reports of events as they happened along with some photos, but I ended up going with a journalist, so I left that to her!

Uganda IDP Camp

I’ve now been in Uganda for five days. The results of my little experiment are already clear to see.

– Twittering from the point of view of an aid worker is going very well. After a few initial technical hitches, it is now as simple as if I was in the UK. It has been by far the easiest means of communication, allowing me to give the most up to date news with little disruption to my work.

It’s limitations are also evident. It is difficult to tell such a huge story in 140 characters. There is so much to say and so many angles that I could follow. The details that may be of great interest to consumers are so easily left out. It can also be expensive. Using a mobile phone to send texts from Uganda is likely to be over 50p per text. Probably more.

– Telephone interviews have been easy. There is the problem of cost again, but it does mean that I could get a much more comprehensive view of the situation back to the UK with the least amount of time in the remotest of locations. There are sometimes problems with a delay on the line and the quality of the connection may hamper the usability of some of the interviews.

– My colleague has been able to file written news reports with her paper with little trouble. We have also managed to get some photos back with little trouble both via email and via multimedia text message.

– The use of the video camera to make and send back a news package was the most interesting test. A test that I suspect was doomed to fail long before I even left. It’s not that the technology isn’t there, it’s just that I don’t have it! The collection of footage has been easy. The new camcorder is very simple, light weight and compact. It also produces very high quality footage that will easily be of broadcast standard. The problems that I have faced have been with editing the footage. My laptop simply doesn’t have the power to edit HD footage. But even if it did, the internet connections that I have been able to find are not fast enough to upload a package of sufficient quality to broadcast on TV and only just for the internet.

However, it will certainly make a news package worthy of broadcast, but only on my return to the UK, when I can use a higher powered editing PC.

The other problem that I have found is that even though the camera I have taken is very compact and light weight, it is still a whole extra bag to carry with me and it is a very expensive bit of kit to be carrying around. If I were on a deployment where I had to take all of my stuff everywhere I went, it would have been a real problem.

So what would I do next time?

Well almost the same. I’d twitter from the scene of the disaster, I’d give as many phone interviews as possible. I’d send back as many photos and stories as possible via email.

As for the video option. I really think that this is an opportunity waiting to happen for ShelterBox. The fact that their response teams are often the very first people into disaster zones across the world gives them the edge in terms of news gathering possibilities. It’s great for news outlets and it’s great in terms of PR for ShelterBox. But I think I’d sacrifice on the quality a little and take the smallest pro-sumer camcorder available that had as much manual control as possible. I’d also take a high quality microphone and a much higher quality laptop, with professional editing software such as Avid or Final Cut Pro. If I were to go to a country where I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to use a suitably fast internet connection I’d take a compact Bgan satellite kit or consider taking extra memory cards that I could courier back to the UK. Getting news back in a timely manner is simply imperative.

Who’s reporting?

It only really struck me after I got involved with international aid work how narrow news output can be. The traditional combination of the reporter and the 30 minute news bulletin meant that the sheer cost of sending someone out to cover every story across the globe was too prohibitive, and using outsourced footage was seen to be less preferable and therefore couldn’t be justified for a slot in the over packed 30 minute programme.

Events such as the one I’m attending at the moment – landslides in Uganda, would often be overlooked. And to some extent this is still the case. Of course there is still the short column in the newspapers that was picked off the international news wires, but the sheer scale and drama that can only be portrayed using pictures and audio is lost.

So what has changed?

Well of course the internet has led to huge amounts of citizen journalism. Pictures can traverse the globe in an instant, people can provide ongoing updates with blogs, but I think it’s the physical technology that has been the biggest factor in changing the worlds access to a bigger breadth of news.

Higher quality, low cost and compact video recording equipment has revolutionised not only what can be filmed, but also who can film it. In many places, an every day citizen may have a camcorder which is only just off traditional broadcast quality, and easily high enough quality for broadcast on the internet. It has also meant that incidental news capture has seen a huge rise in occurrence.

Incidental news capture?

Yes, I made up this term, but I think it best describes how people are filming one thing and ‘accidentally’ capture a significant news event. Of course the most obvious have to be the fire on the Concorde aircraft that crashed in France, but also the Hudson River plane crash. Events that would traditionally have gone uncaptured, are now available for the world to see.

Then there is the footage that people get because of the situation that they find themselves in. Take the 7/7 bombings in London. People realised that it was such a huge event, that even though they were on the bombed trains, they got their mobile phones out and started recording the events as they unfolded, from a location that was totally inaccessible to any camera crew.

And then there is the planned attendance of news events that may not warrant a ‘large enough’ news story by people who have other reasons for attending. PR footage if you like. This is where I’m trying to develop a niche. Traditional news quality footage and updates from the ground, but funded by the charity that I work for, filmed in any free moments that I have, when I’m not doing my job delivering aid.

So I set about an experiment to see what news I could get back to the UK from the Ugandan land slides in the shortest time frame available. I’ll report how this went in my next blog.

Presentation Recap and Second Interview

Hi everyone,

First off I thought the presentation went extremely well.  I want to thank everyone for their great participation in the Q&A, I think we could have gone on for another hour on many of the topics we discussed.

I was very surprised by the results of the survey, particularly how few people would be willing to pay for news.  Coming from an outsiders perspective it seems to me that people in this country see access to news as a right and not a privilege.  But then I suppose everyone is already paying for news with the license fee.  Lets hope the rest of the world doesn’t think like us or we may never find jobs.

As I said during the Q&A, in the US if you don’t pay for cable you only have access to your local channels.  There is very little international news coverage on local news shows.  You might not hear about what is happening in the next state let alone around the world.  See below for an example of the in depth world coverage they provide.

It is incredibly important that international news coverage is maintained so people can be informed as to what is happening globally and don’t become solely focused on their own country.

As for the interviews; unfortunately Danfung has asked me not to post the video of the interview online.  But if you want I can transcribe what he said and post it.  If you’re interested in seeing the full trailer of his documentary here is the link to his website.

I also spoke to Oliver Poole, former Baghdad bureau chief for the Daily Telegraph, who now works for an American global business intelligence company named Diligence. Oliver was recently back in Iraq helping to train local journalist.  I asked him if we were in danger of losing quality international coverage.

I wanted to upload the audio so that you could here from Oliver himself.  However, wordpress won’t let me upload wav files without paying for a space upgrade so I’ve transcribed it instead.

“I think there is no question that the trend is going against it. And indeed one of the points of the workshops that the US funded visit I just did to Iraq, in the last few days, was to try to encourage normal Iraqi’s to start using all the powers we have at our disposal. Particularly, obviously, the Internet to be able to communicate to the world at large themselves what is going on, rather than relying on foreign or big media intermediaries.”- Oliver Poole

Oliver Poole, Iraq

Presentation Survey results are in!

I hope our presentation gave people a good overview of the challenges which Public Service Broadcasting faces in the Digital Age, as well as the scope for new opportunities.

Ross and Hayley gave an excellent overview of the BBC/ ITV debate as well as showcasing how it is not just news that comes under the remit of PSB- the quality and learning value of entertainment and soaps should not be underestimated, as they highlighted.

Stuart enacted (literally!) the debate on how advertising is likely to shape PSB output in the future. An image of Fox News presenters drinking coffee from Starbucks cups really brought home the crucial question of how this will influence future broadcasting programmes.

Ed spoke to two international journalists about the changing landscape of international news gathering and collaboration with local journalists – our spectators unfortunately ran out of their pre-paid 15 minutes to watch the full interviews but be first to see it here!

And I made it over from America as a chat show host to deliver some learnings about the changing nature of the audience in the digital age. Bringing the chat-show forum to the blog!

I have counted up and gathered people’s answers from our questionnaires and there are some interesting (although not wholly unsurprising) learnings:

Only 3 out of 28 agreed to paying for online news. This sparked a big debate where the question remains

How can you justify the work of trained and skilled journalists if they are not getting paid for it? It is a service after all. Is the key to pay for only niche and more detailed research and reports?

The largest news source by far (with everyone ticking this box) was online news, whilst only 9 people claimed to read printed journalism- again backing up the statistics from an earlier post.

People were split almost 50-50 on the question of whether the licence fee should be shared between broadcasters. Stephen Fry gives an interesting view on this in Hayley’s post on the BBC’s licence fee.

As does Jon Simpson in his book ‘News from No Man’s Land’, highly recommend it!

Finally, unsurprisingly facebook came top of the social media sites, with almost everyone using it. People listed on average three social media sites (twitter, facebook, gmail, word press, guardian online, BBC, indy media, you tube, delicious)… And these were only the main ones.

Just goes to show how the variety of platforms opening up in the digital age is the key challenge – or opportunity- for broadcasters going forward. The debate continues.

PSB: On Demand

In a 2007 report on the future of public service broadcasting, Richard Berry states:

“We no longer have an environment with a small number of providers – the internet and digital television/radio represent near-limitless forums for broadcasting ‘content,’ whether news, entertainment, sport, or anything else, and competition for audiences is much more intense.”

This has never been more true than now. Each of the public service broadcasters has its own online service where audiences can watch content whenever they like. The BBC has BBC iplayer, ITV has ITV player, Channel 4 has 4OD and five has five on demand.

 

Audiences are increasingly taking advantage of such digital media to access public service content. They have much more responsibility for the type of programming they are watching or listening to with this type of selective viewing. The consumer can choose not only what to watch, but when to watch it.

 

According to Ofcom’s report, almost 90 per cent of British homes have digital television and the majority have broadband. Ofcom’s research shows that the use of the internet to access public service content has grown dramatically since 2003, especially among younger people.

 

To add to these selective viewing habits, television packages are now offering services such as Sky Plus, which allows the consumer to watch programmes on demand.  Such services also give audiences the ability to avoid advertisements as well as sections of the programme that do not interest them.

 

Where news is concerned, information is available for audiences to access whenever they like with newspaper content published online. New technologies such as internet access on mobile phones allow consumers to receive news headlines wherever they are. However, this still involves the selective process whereby the consumer chooses what sort of news they want to receive. 

 

If left to choice, what would people choose?

 

You only have to look at the most read news stories on the BBC’s news website to see they are not necessarily the most newsworthy (in the mind of a journalist). There’s a real danger that the availability of public service content on demand, will have the same effect on programming. The quality of the content would deteriorate, in effect dumbing down to meet the demands of the audience.

Can public service broadcasting survive the ‘on demand’ culture we now have in Britain? Not if selective viewing habits continue to be heightened.

Power to the People!

So far we have been speaking about the threats to news in the digital age and the way that broadcasters have attempted to adapt to the changing digital landscape.

However, in order to answer the question- how can the quality and diversity of public service broadcasting be maintained in the digital age?– it is necessary to look at the nature of the digital consumer and what the needs are for the modern viewer.

This slide show gives the findings of research conducted by an American think tank on the ‘New News Audience’ : ’12 ways consumers have changed in the digital age’.

NEW NEWS AUDIENCE SLIDESHOW

Some of the key points, which show how rapidly the digital age is evolving, are the following:

From 2000 to 2009 adults using internet increased from 46% to 79%

• In 2000 0% of adults were able to connect to the Internet wirelessly, versus 56% in 2009.

• People are spending less time with news but news platforms are shifting.

• Half of Internet users have a personalized web page, receive RSS feeds or get news alerts relevant to topics of their choice (you can personalise your i-GOOGLE web browser for example).

• News is becoming participatory with one in five Internet users posting political comments online.

News is becoming social: 10% of those with social networking profiles (such as FACEBOOK) get news through those sites.

The key to the digital age, therefore, is that the decisions in accessing informative and educational material lie with the consumer.

We no longer have the didactic model of old news outlets where consumers were ‘spoon-fed’ and the quality of the education and information they received depended on the broadcasters providing this.

So how can broadcasters influence their decisions and Internet navigation?

The answer must also lie in MEDIA LITERACY: educating young people about how to access news and how to self-regulate their information channels.

In my opinion, new media studies should become part of a younger curriculum and broadcasters and news corporations should also channel their efforts into educating people on how to be a modern news consumer.

With increased diversity of online sources, the responsibility has shifted to the consumer to learn to maintain their access to quality information.