- Kevin Marsh
- 29 Mar 07, 01:52 PM
One of the jobs of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ College of Journalism is to ask difficult questions - often, they're questions to which no-one has a definitive answer or to which the answer isn't simple. One of those questions is; why do some stories make it onto the national news while others don't?
OK... editing a programme is an art not a science and there are many reasons why an editor will decide one way on a Monday and a different way on a Tuesday. I know, I've been there. Plus, programmes aren't edited in hindsight by paragons of omniscience. But think about this.
If you listen to or watch the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ outside the Midlands, you almost certainly won't know the name Jason Spencer.
17-year-old was stabbed in the chest on 6 March. A single wound. He died. Eight days later, 16-year-old was stabbed in the chest. A single wound. He died.
Both boys' families were distraught. Both ruled out the possibility that they were involved with gangs or drugs.
Jason Spencer's murder did not make network news... except in a stabbings roundup on News 24 on 19 March. Kodjo Yenga's did; about 170 times on network radio, 14 times on terrestrial bulletins and over 200 times on News 24 between 14 March and 21 March.
Jason Spencer was stabbed in Nottingham; Kodjo Yenga in Hammersmith.
On Radio Five Live this week, Jason's mother and stepfather said they felt they'd been failed by organisations they expected to help. They had in mind organisations like Victim Support.
Does the list end there?
Kevin Marsh is editor of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ College of Journalism
- David Kermode
- 29 Mar 07, 11:48 AM
Last month on Breakfast, we asked people watching at home to get in touch if they were interested in being part of our 'Audience Panel'.
I'm not quite sure what we expected, but we were surprised by the level of response. More than three thousand people emailed us, to say they'd like to take part. Yes, when you consider that five million people watch Breakfast every day, then it's a small percentage of our viewers. But we're absolutely delighted that it's aroused the interest that it has.
We've spent the last four weeks going through those expressions of interest, trying to select a panel that's as representative as possible of our audience demographic. This has been tricky because we haven't really asked for that much detail from our viewers. It's basically been name, age, location and profession. That said, what we're setting out to achieve here is not precise market research, but has much more to do with identifying the things that work for our audience.
We've already had some initial feedback on the programme from those three thousand people who responded. Perhaps unsurprisingly (as they are already Breakfast viewers), most were generally positive (and sometimes very kind) about what they watch every morning. Most value their news briefing, many want the programme to feel "warm" or "friendly", there was particular praise for Declan's ability to communicate some of the complexities around business and finance, there was a desire to understand what stories mean "for me" and there was an appetite for international stories and perspectives.
The next step, having decided on our panel, is to send out our first batch of questions. We're working on them right now, but we intend to have a couple of programme specific questions and at least one supplementary enquiry pegged to an 'issue' of some kind.
There are two real tests for us. One is making sure that we don't annoy those people who have agreed to be on our panel. The second is making it all mean something. If we can't prove that we have responded to some thing or some theme that has emerged from the Panel, then we will have failed.
David Kermode is editor of
- Jeremy Hillman
- 29 Mar 07, 11:36 AM
Our commercial 24-hour global news channel is now available in over 280 million homes with a weekly audience of 65 million. But it's nearly all been for an English-speaking audience, up till now.
I've just spent a couple of days in Athens promoting a new deal between World and , a major broadcaster in Greece which reaches every home in the country. It's an amazing arrangement.
They take two World bulletins everyday and have a team of producers, editors and translators to dub our bulletins into Greek and re-broadcast them within three hours.
They have a state of the art newsroom, plush editing suites and frankly, studio facilities we would kill for.
Best of all, SKAI is anxious to practice the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's journalistic values which are well known in the country thanks to the World Service radio's Greek Service which closed a few years ago.
It's fair to say that Greek broadcast media has played by 'Australian rules' up till now, ie anything goes. Legal and editorial guidelines are something for academic study only. SKAI want to change that.
They do occasionally have problems with the translation though. Last week they spotted at the last minute that 'tourist' attacks in Iraq should have been 'terrorist' attacks.
Jeremy Hillman is editor of the business and economics unit
The Times: Reports on Channel 4βs bid to run ten new digital radio stations to provide "public service competitionβ to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. ()
The Guardian: Reports that it looks likely that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has won its High Court action concerning Freedom of Information requests to publish a review into the corporationβs coverage of the Middle East. ()
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