大象传媒

You can follow Rhod and Howard (Howard is in charge of Up All Night in case you were wondering) and now you can see . A chance to peek behind the scenes of radio production, some of their journey to Pennsylvania and their ride on an historic steam engine. And if you've any election video you'd like to share with the audience drop a note in comments or email us at upallnight@bbc.co.uk
UPDATE: More from Howard and Rhod on the road as they pay a visit to Allentown PA's
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The gremlins well and truly got in the works for this week's segment. Firstly problems with the connection to Pennsylvania that left Rhod sounding a bit like, as one texter put it, he was in the company of a small flock of birds and then a soundcard failure caused chaos a little later. Oh well that should hopefully be our ration of them for a while.

• We began this shorter than usual broadcast talking about the major interest in the blogosphere's role in the elections in the US. CNN has recruited a small army of top bloggers to document election night. A really cool idea. We also mentioned some of the .
• Pitt Britt and friends in Pittsburgh told us about the race there. The Skype connection sounded great and the comments from Jonathan and friends were great right up until the point when Jonathan's sound card gave out..we could hear him..but not him us..confusion all around. (To be fair this also happened with an ISDN line last election..leaving one guest talking for about 2-3minutes until we finally figured out she couldn't hear us asking her to stop talking. Well you can't do live radio 24/7 without stuff like this)
• of The American Thinker told us about campaign for an Illinois congressional district. There are a number of Iraq vets running, Tammy lost both her legs in the war, and we discussed whether this would herald the return of "swiftboating"
• joined us to talk used as a campaign weapon and how YouTube was affecting the race
• And lastly we couldn't finish without a clip of the . OK it's not exactly a serious campaign..but when you compare his commercials with ASAP's (a branch of Associated Press) it's hard to tell the real from the ridiculous.

There are lots of different things that one can blog about, but daily content is key, Literature can provide the raw material as does (sort of) but art can also be a subject and of one man's efforts to go out painting every day of the year is a lovely idea well executed. Thanks to the P&B commenter (the artist himself I believe) who mentioned it.

Blogger and science reporter has been pushing for justice for accused of infecting over 400 children with HIV infected blood. Declan argues persuasively that there is no scientific evidence to support this claim. If convicted the five nurses and one doctor could indeed face the death penalty. The campaign for justice for the medical workers has been championed by the blogosphere especially Declan's website. It's an important issue and one that bloggers have been following day in day out. Listen to Declan's interview
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Rhod and Howard are now in Pennsylvania. Among the items airing tonight interviews with citizen reporters who contacted us: from Illinois comment on a fascinating race pitching a Democratic Iraq Vet injured in the war against a local Republican state senator - that from Richard Baer of theAlso from the blogger who styles himself (great name) we'll get a sense of the race in Pittsburgh. You can now follow Howard and Rhod's progress on the here. Feel free to add your pin to the map telling us about how the race looks near you. Their photos from the trip so far are in Flickr in the sidebar. Expect video of the road trip soon.
UPDATE: Listening to the show and posting some thoughts we'll also have comment from . And for a Republican view of the race you should definitely take a look at

Rhod is in Connecticut on tonight's Up All Night looking at one of the most in the election. Listening tonight we have two excellent local bloggers from and Don Pesci from They'll be posting up their thoughts on the issues raised in the start of the programme. Please do visit their sites, they are well, well worth reading.
UPDATE: And just a reminder that if you want to get involved with these broadcasts you can. Details here
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Journalism can be a dangerous business. a video-maker with the independent news group Indymedia has been killed in the Mexican city of Oaxaca after locals clashed with protestors. You can read the background on . There are tributes to Brad and examples of his work on

Thanks to all those offering to help with our plans to work with Citizen Reporters over there's still scope for more of you to get involved, and to those of you who've already emailed we'll be making contact over the next few days. We'd like to speak with political bloggers in Connecticut on Sunday - so if there are any of you out there who might be interested in talking with us drop a line to upallnight@bbc.co.uk. And on that note thanks to Ken Buck for drawing our attention to , lamontblog and connecticutlocalpolitics.
Thanks also to Richard Greene for the note on the reporters blog. And thanks to bloggers Freepolitik, , , and for getting in touch. I'll keep adding to the lists and to the links as we carry on.
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The perils/joys of RSS*. From the excellent a note about which, thanks to the magic of RSS (I assume), spots and highlights corrections made to online articles (currently only 大象传媒, Guardian and Independent)
*delete as appropriate
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Kevin managed to with Adam Ereli of the US state department who's over here on a public diplomacy mission. It's a really interesting video and concept but as the comments on the Guardian website show he's got a lot of work on his hands.
UPDATE: I changed the title of this post because on reflection I think it hit the wrong note, it was a bit too lighthearted in tone.

Unemployed newbie blogger Al Murray (see pic) got in touch with us about his new scheme to get work: "I have started my own blog, ", Al says, "Rather fed up with applying for jobs I am auctioning myself on ebay to work for anyone anywhere next week. I am writing about my experiences on my blog al4hire.com, I am currently half way towards the minimum wage at 拢102 for next week. If this is a success I plan to do this every week until I get a good job offer."Al says he won't do anything dangerous or illegal - but that still leaves plenty of scope for the bizarre, the embarassing or the just plain boring- so I think Al is a brave man. Still it's not a bad plan for someone whose previousl career was in online marketing. I suspect this will get quite a bit of press.
We'll be talking to Al after his first day of work on Pods and Blogs. Be interesting to see what he finally ends up doing
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Big thanks to and the for helping to get the word out about our US Mid-term election plans. We've had a really great response and thanks to all those who have emailed us or helped spread the word.

The archive of the show is available here

• We began with Treasure of Baghdad's post about Iraq illustrated by a clip of . DC based Oxblogger gave us some analysis of the military and political implications of the conflict as we approach the US midterms
  
• Robin Hamman's excellent report from the Manchester Blog Awards so nice to hear bloggers reading their own posts - something we don't do enough of on Pods and Blogs
  
• who serves on the Open Rights Group advisory panel set out why he thinks services like YouTube shouldn't be regulated.
  
• A report from 18 Doughty Street.
  
• Virtual Worlds are, apparently a British invention, we had more from the Ren Reynolds and Professor Richard Bartle (inventor of MUD arguably the first virtual world) who blog at
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It's not long till the and we'd like your help telling the story. We'll be visiting Connecticut and Pennsylvania and on ) in Washington DC - but we can't be everywhere and there many fascinating races we'd like to cover. So we'd like your help in reporting the election - polls and the results on the night of the race will only give us half the story. We'd like to know what it looks like from the ground.

We're not limiting this to people in the US although that will be our primary focus. If you'd like to be a Five Live "Citizen Reporter" during the election drop a note to upallnight@bbc.co.uk. The kind of things we're looking for are:

• Personal views of the race from people with an interesting perspective (perhaps you are a recent immigrant or an Iraq vet for example)
  
• Bloggers, podcasters and vloggers who are covering their local race.
  
• Anyone with a real interest in local politics and an ability to tell the story of the race in their town and state.
  
• People from overseas with a real stake in the result.

If you think you could give an interesting perspective on the election to a national UK audience then drop us a note. There are lots of different ways you can contribute here are some suggestions:

• Phone or interviews
  
• Emailing us an audio report
  
• Emailing a short written report that we can read on air
  
• Pointing us to a blog, podcast or vlog you've made covering the election.
  
• Point us to a story you think we should be covering

Our hope is that by enlisting your help we'll have coverage that isn't just about pundits and experts but gives us a real flavour of what the race is like for ordinary Americans that cuts through some of the stereotypes about politics in the US.
UPDATE: World Have Your Say will also be in the US. I'm sure we'll be sharing guests and programme ideas. You can read about their plans here
UPDATE: Comments have been a bit slow updating on the blog..apologies for that.
UPDATE: We now have a . If you like add a pin and tell us a bit about the race where you are.
UPDATE: You can see Howard and Rhod's . Think Primary Colors meets Thelma and Louise meets Strangers on a Train
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On Tuesday we'll be speaking with Kevin Marks of the Open Rights Group advisory panel to talk about proposals being considered for the regulation of video on the net:has been looking at plans to update the . It currently covers traditional television, but there are proposals from the EU Commission to

The changes to TVWF are intended to offer the same protection to people visiting online video sites as those who watch regular TV but many vloggers and other online video people worry that it could stifle the new medium if it is subject to the same regulation as television broadcasts. Kevin discusses this issue in this - Incidentally this vlog is a great way to keep across what's getting the buzz on the blogosphere.
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Pods and Blogs is part of Five Live's, weekly overnight international news sequence Up All Night, so it's nice to know there are some bloggers out there to keep us company in the wee small hours. In the comments section Mark (aka ) has left us a note about his blog. We'd love to hear from more night work bloggers - I thought Mark's comments about why he blogs were just great:

My Blog is about how I see the news story鈥檚 of the night, it鈥檚 a real street level view of the news and why am I doing this in my Blog? For my daughters so they will have something they can look up to see what there father was thinking about and what makes him go all wonky at the TV when the news is on, LOL.

Mark is a late night truck driver and author (a very cool combination of professions). If like him you work and blog late night get in touch and tell us a bit about your blogs, and yourselves.

On Tuesday we'll certainly be taking a look at this post on . It's not a complete, or perfect picture of the situation in Iraq, but it does make fascinating reading - like this post from Iraq Konfused Kid (now writing from Amman):

now you fear so many, even in your own area you cannot feel safe, not a single minute is spent with complete comfort as the dangers around you are boundless: militas, roadside bombs, et all.
Basically, It's a jungle out there.

I'll post more on this when I get time. The blogs in Iraq are demonstrating the value of weblogs, podcasts and the new social media as a second stream of information alongside that of the mainstream media. If there's a particular site, blog post, podcast or video highlighting the voice of an ordinary Iraqi, contractor, aid-worker or coalition soldier that you think should be shared wth our audience do drop a note in comments or email us

Next week's Pods and Blogs will feature a report from the new web-based television station which launched about a week ago. But if you can't wait, you can see yours truly make a in this video here (shot I might add on a perfectly ordinary digital camera)

To its critics 18 Doughty St is Tory TV, to its supporters it's a refreshing alternative to mainstream media political coverage and to others it's, well, a bit of both. Last Monday I visited politics programme. The guests were (see picture), and . A certain was lurking in the background though I didn't see any evidence of he apparently carries around with him

18 Doughty St is a bit like for political junkies except that it actually is located at 18 Doughty St, a mere stone's throw from one of London's finest, the Duke of York pub. The studio that you don't need dozens of people to make good TV. A well behaved dog sits infront of the production cubicle, while the tatooed floor-manager marshalls Iain and guests. Production gallery, sofa's, set and camera's all fit into a large living room sized space.

It was a short trip to Doughty St, slotted in between the end of a production shift on Five Live Drive and hashing together the segment but it was, to use a daft sounding word, stimulating. If they can steer clear of becoming a talking shop for people with a common ideology and atune themselves to the voices of ordinary people, they should do very well indeed.

one of the co-founders of Apple will be on the Simon Mayo programme on Five Live, who incidentally, will be live from the Science Museum's new computer game exhibit. Just thought you might be interested...

UPDATE: You can read the other Apple co-founder's thoughts via MSNBC .

The 17th was, as previously mentioned - when History Matters encouraged us to note down our thoughts and submit them to one central "blog" there to be entered into the annals of history, and if not that the Guinness Book of Records. Ivo Dawnay of History Matters was on Drive and said they'd had over 30,000 entries.. Many of you left wonderful comments, if you haven't already done so, please cut and paste them into the . For what its worth here's what happened to me on the Tuesday.

3:50AM the cab takes me home from the 大象传媒 and I sleep walk into bed. 11:58AM I awake 2 hours too early because neither the Sun has an off switch, nor the birds a volume control. 11:30AM don random clothes, am the model of sartorial elegance in a natty Harris Tweed and t-shirt combo. 11:40AM It's my day off - I'm a whirlwind of domestic efficiency: 15 cups of tea and the business section of last week's newspaper later I'm dispatched by my cold-infested better half to go shopping for medicinal alcohol. 7:00PM return and administer restorative alcohol with water, lemon and honey infusion. 8PM cook dinner and drink medicinal booze as a prophylactic measure. 11:00PM do a bit of last minute swatting for a TV interview - wonder if it will be one of those ones that are done in the news room - shudder at the thought of spouting about blogs while my colleagues laugh and point (thankfully it's cancelled) 11:30PM try and blog something exciting about One Day In History. 12PM conclude that indeed most men do live lives of quiet desperation, drink more medicinal alcohol as a final proof against cold infection and fall asleep..

And there, in summary, is my day. I'm not sure what the historians of the distant future will make of this except perhaps to wonder at the mirculous silence of their cockroach ancestors. BTW the picture is from El Matador beach in LA near where I used to live.

The 7-day archive of the segment can be heard here

• A brief look at the with two of the bloggers I met on my visit to and (more on that next week)
  
• Peter Gabriel spoke to us about his recent efforts to create the - and spoke about how he sees the digital future of the music industry.
  
• Noah Schactman told us about a
  
• formerly of Microsoft now of Podtech spoke to us about the new .com boom and .
  
• Reuters has opened a bureau in Second Life. who has been reporting from Second Life for quite some time gave us his thoughts on big media in virtual worlds
  
• Ivo Dawanay of Historymatters.org.uk told us about the attempt to and why we should all be "blogging" October 17th.
  
• And finally the went swimmingly well. Robin Hamman will have more on this next week, including interviews and readings from some of the winning blogs.

If you have an idea for next week's show drop a note in comments or email podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk
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UPDATE: For those of you who missed the interview with Peter, you can listen to an extended version of it in the 大象传媒 Radio Player.

Just a bit of advance notice that we'll be recording an interview with so if you've a burning question you'd like us to put to him send an email to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk (or leave a comment) by midday on Monday. There's definitely plenty to talk about: in 1992 Peter founded which recently started working in partnership with to pilot a . And as a musician he's been a leader in the field of Digital Music recently earning a pioneer award at the .

It's the on Monday. No doubt there'll be many tearful acceptance speeches and I know particularly looking forward to leading the big dance number they have planned for the intermission*. We'll hear from him on Pods and Blogs, but I hope you'll take the time to look at some of the blogs listed on the 大象传媒 Manchester Blog. which is, in itself an innovative project that I think is an excellent model of ; certainly plenty of other people seem pretty interested in it (see and for example)

*This may not in fact be true.

It's 11am on a Saturday morning, I'm sitting in my living room and a woman with a small crown and a large axe is standing next to me as I attempt to complete a report for the World Service's Newshour programme. Fortunately my real life (if not my broadcasting career) was never actually in danger - I was reporting form the virtual online world "Second Life". You can listen to the whole thing here ( link valid till Oct 15th I think). It's a shame the rather atmospheric wind noises in Second Life didn't really come out over the Skype connection, particularly the bit were someone suddently started making strange whooping noises just as I tried to answer a question.

Oddly the night before I had a real-life chat with "Babbage Linden", one of the UK based Second Life staffers. We'll run that interview probably the week after next. I'm still not quite comfortable in Second Life, but people are certainly doing some really with some very worthwhile . The economics of the place is also worth several Phd's on its own:

Very interesting story over at about the politics of blogging..er..politics. To summarise there's a row over whether or not the Ulster Unionists were right to blog top level political talks, or if this jeopardised the confidentiality of the summit (something the bloggers themselves strongly deny) However, the image chosen made us smile. Honestly Pods and Blogs wasn't involved..not us guv..

But blog rows aside a big day in the politics of Northern Ireland as ever we recommend as a starting point with more relevant blogs via his blogroll

Today's news seems to be filled with video on the web. on YouTube of a Harrier making a low pass over a soldier is making headlines today. Apparently it is .

Meanwhile, in a video political opponents are Labour MP Sion Simon has posted of (As someone pointed out Sion's spoof has an uncanny ). I'll leave readers to compare it and Webcameron with earlier satire and make up their own minds which of the three politicians video's they prefer. But you'd be forgiven for thinking that the entire house of Commons was about to appear on You Tube: Labour MP and blogger Tom Watson has with a challenge to Cameron.

Given all the political spin flying about the web, it's pleasing to note the two top political bloggers Guido Fawkes and Recess Monkey now have a : expect them to cut through all this stuff like a knife through hot butter.

In the meantime if you have a clean YouTube message for the nation, feel free to post a link in the comments.

The blogs are following the crash of a in New York closely. is on the case and links to a blogger and from the comments of the same post some

On Tuesday October 17th are asking people to take part in the "biggest blog in history" The aim is to create a snapshot of a day in history, in their words:

We want as many people as possible - tens of thousands of UK residents - to record a 'blog' diary of this one day to be held by the British Library and others as a record of our national life.

It's an interesting idea, and it does illustrate how bloggers are day-in, day-out creating history, though you could argue the internet is already archiving blog posts in this way.

We'll be talking to the organisers but we'd like to hear from you. If you are starting your day - particularly if you work, live or study somewhere with an interesting history - drop a note to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk or leave a note in comments. We want to kick the day off and are looking for a couple of people to join us live on the radio at 0240(ish) to talk about what they might "blog" on this day. If you pefer to confine yourself to print drop a note into the comments on this post on the morning of the 17th and we'll read some of them out.

BTW If you do send us a blog be sure to cut and paste your diaries into
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Why should citizen journalists send major news organisations their content? And why should audiences want to hear it? The Daily Show asked these very questions . As with all good satire there are serious issues here burried in the humour and they apply to all big news organisations not just CNN. I've tried to set out why I think citizen journalism is really important and valuable in a interview ahead of (and the usual disclaimer these are my personal views not those of the entire 大象传媒). But what do you think? How should major news organisations work with Citizen Journalists? What do audiences get out of it? And how do Citizen Journalists benefit?
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You can listen to the segment archive here. This week we featured:

• Tim Savage of Oh My News on the North Korean Nuclear Test
  
• More of David Axe's mp3's from Iraq - this time a report on some innovative strategies being used by the British in Maysan province
  
• Michael Arrington of TechCrunch on the
  
• All the and why not every blogger wants to dish the dirt with Flaming Nora of
  
• High-art in low places, of the Wall Street Journal tells us about finding classic performances on YouTube
  

News of the North Korean nuclear test has, as one might expect, reverberated around the blogosphere. On Pods and Blogs we'll talk with and . Oh My News is a South Korean based news site and is arguably the world leader in harnessing the power of citizen journalism. While it has a full time staff of 55 writers, over 41,000 people are signed up as "citizen reporters" and generate around 80% of the site's content. As you'd expect in North Korea has been extensive.

One can find experts in every field on the blogs, and among those with nuclear expertise there's debate over the significance of the relatively small yield of the test. Via , g thinks it was probably a dud, whereas thinks it may be a small but perfectly formed test bomb. However, most bloggers agree that dud or no dud the possession of that much fissile material by North Korea is in itself of grave concern.

There is however at least one notable exception to the near universal view that this test is probably a bad thing . The [north] forum has many messages like this one from a well-wisher in the UK.

Congratulations to the DPRK if this is true. A truly historic day and a deserved blow to the imperialists

Writer for and , , who has been a guest on Pods and Blogs a number of times, is just back from visiting British troops in Basra. He collected some fascinating interviews with servicemen and women, using an inexpensive (less than 拢100) mp3 recorder that we sent to him - the kind of thing you could easily get in any high street shop. You can hear David's report into the continuing effort to clean up Basra's police-stations, code-named on the Five Live archive here, (fast forward about 15minutes). While the audio quality isn't what you'd get with more expensive (and bulky) equipment I think it's a great listen. It highlights the fact that there's now no longer a financial or technical barrier to creating compelling audio, the equipment is within the reach of any aspiring broadcaster/podcaster. Over the coming weeks some podcast co-conspirators and I will be producing a little guide to down and dirty audio recording. We've featured many audio pieces by listeners, bloggers podcasters on Pods and Blogs and we hope the guide will encourage more of you to send us your recordings - though war reporting probably comes under the banner of "don't try this at home."
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is one of the best political websites around so Saturday's blogging event should be well worth attending. From the press release:
Inaugural conference on blogging and politics to be held in Dublin on October 7th.
The heavyweights of the growing Irish blogging community will mix with politicians, journalists and interested members of the public at an event called 鈥淏logging the Election鈥� In Dublin in October. The event is being billed as an informal meeting and discussion on how new Internet tools like blogging can help and influence the very traditional political process in Ireland.
Should be an interesting day...
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As ever you can hear an archive here (show begins a bit late because of the breaking news about the school shootings). Tuesday's segment featured

• (Con), (Lib) and J(Lab) talking about political blogging and Webcameron
  
• Suzanne Stefanac spoke about
  
• gave us an excellent update on the elections in Brazil. We hope she can join us again when we have more time.
  
• updated us on the Portable Media Expo America's big podcasting conference.
  
• Kevin Anderson told us about his new job as Editor of Blogs at the Guardian and the issues facing newspapers that blog.
  

We'll be having a discussion between (Lib Dem blogger of the Year) , Jon (Labour's Official Conference Blogger) and (at the Conservative Party Conference) about how political parties are embracing the internet. If you have a question for them drop a note into comments or send an email to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk

UPDATE: It wasn't Iain in the end but Tim Montgomerie from who joined us. Also of note while trying to log on to WebCameron accidentally discovered that the owner of is actually an Australian performance poet who is, he told me, rather puzzled by all the traffic and attention from journalists he's been getting.
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If you have a blog and want to make it better, if you would like to start a blog but don't know where to begin or if you simply want to find out more about the blogosphere then we'd like to hear from you. On the next Pods and Blogs we'll be interviewing author of Dispatches from Blogistan and we'd like you to send us your questions about blogging. Leave them in the comments section or email podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk the book covers pretty much the whole territory so there should be something there for you whether you are a complete newbie or a blog-vet.
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The Conservatives are embracing the power of YouTube. promises, if not fireside chats, the Tory leader doing the dishes etc. Presumably the idea is that videos recorded in such settings have added authenticity because no-one "spins" in the kitchen unless it's on a quick wash cycle. You may remember, from a different part of the political spectrum, that Senator John Edwards also used kitchen table chats in his podcasts to great effect (who can forget the palpable "get that microphone out of my house" tone of a rather reticent Mrs Edwards).

The Conservatives are clearly pushing social media in a big way. I remember when we started pods and blogs Iain Duncan Smith told us that they must do just that. He was inspired by the role of the blogs in American politics, but Cameron's engagement with the blogosphere is slightly different in flavour I think. This is not the unleashing of the blogs of war (or anti-war)

But two can play it this webcam game. Why not send us your kitchen podcasts and mp3's. Do you have a message for our political leaders best delivered over a sink full of suds? Does laundry lead you to loquaciousness? Send us the link for video (or an mp3) to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk
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