- Peter Rippon
- 14 Jun 06, 01:32 PM
Following Kevin's posting about swearing on News 24, we also used the F-word on PM yesterday at about seven minutes past five in the afternoon. However, we did not do it by accident. We chose to do it.
My initial thought was there was no way we could use it, but after discussing the tone and context we decided we should, but with a "health warning".
Radio Four listeners expect adult journalism. We felt that Abdul Kahar's account of the first words the police spoke to him was a powerful punctuation point in the story he was telling. As such, it was a really important moment in the narrative and to lose it would have detracted from the impact. The word was also used a couple of other times in the news conference, but we felt that in those cases we could avoid using it because they were not so integral to the story.
So far we have had only two complaints. Very few. In the past we've had far more from listeners complaining we are being patronising when we've bleeped swear words.
We do try to avoid offensive language whenever possible. Each case is different. I recently apologised to listeners who were rightly offended that we had used the word "shag". In that case we got it wrong and the tone and context in which we used it were not justified. It was my fault. A producer asked me if it was OK to say shag and I assumed it was being used to mean exhausted or knackered. We ended up with a contributor advising the new England manager to make sure his players did not "shag prostitutes". It was completely out of context.
Peter Rippon is editor of World at One, PM and Broadcasting House
- Kevin Marsh
- 14 Jun 06, 12:18 PM
Apparently 32% of 大象传媒 staff don't think news organisations should be more open with audiences.
More than 600 have voted so far in a 大象传媒 intranet poll which was started after I made a speech to Bournemouth University Media School's (you can read it here).
I'd be intrigued to know how that 32% breaks down.
Presumably some think that news organisations are already open enough with their audiences - though, I guess they've never tried to get a correction to a newspaper story they know to be untrue or watched helplessly as two completely unrelated sets of facts are mashed together into a tasty, but fundamentally misleading, newspaper narrative.
Presumably, too, some think they should be less open - which would be difficult. It's worth spending a bit of time trying to get out of British newspapers anything resembling a code of conduct or ethics. The Guardian has one - - and which goes a little further, though not much, than the , itself more of a trade code designed by newspaper editors for newspaper editors.
The point, though, is this. The new media - including, but not limited to, the web - are giving audiences and readers degrees of choice they've never had before. There'll always be a demand for gutsy argument and opinionated "news" - though it's interesting to ponder where the differentiation will lie in two years' time between "news that confirms my world view"/my favourite column and the blog.
The demand for news - facts about the world that professional journalists have gathered, verified, made sense of - continues to grow. The organisations that will do best at servicing that demand among developing audiences will be the ones that show their workings.
The ones that don't just say "trust me" - but show why you can.
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 大象传媒 College of Journalism
- Steve Herrmann
- 14 Jun 06, 10:23 AM
A lot of Americans like our News website. I was reminded of this on Monday night - by a lot of Americans - at the Webby awards in New York.
We were there to receive, for the second consecutive year, . A tough assignment, but someone had to go.
The ceremonies for the Webby awards - often dubbed the online Oscars (to the annoyance of the actual, ) have a reputation for being unstuffy and a bit wacky (some pictures ). Last night's , one of the prize winners, who sang a song, then threw his guitar away and disappeared. Damon Albarn's got a prize and in puppet form they did a comedy routine on behalf of their human creators.
told us globalisation meant the world really is flat, , and recounted as one of the internet's founding fathers. He also delivered his acceptance speech in binary code. Decoded, it apparently said the future of the internet belongs to 鈥渄igital objects and handles鈥. Peter Sharples of our live site team was one of our party at the bash and was able helpfully to explain what this meant to us in between speeches.
It made a lot of sense at the time.
Beyond that I recollect being interviewed by Guto Harri, making the obligatory five-word-only acceptance speech - "'We did it again, THANKYOU" (read the rest ) - going to the after-show party, then the airport after three hours鈥 sleep.
Main impression though: What we do is hugely respected by a group of the most influential people working on the web - and it was fantastic to witness that in person.
Steve Herrmann is editor of the
Some of the issues raised by callers to the 大象传媒 in the past 24 hours include continued complaints about the amount of World Cup coverage in news programmes, and claims that coverage was too sympathetic to the two men arrested in the Forest Gate raid. One said there was too much emphasis on building bridges with Muslims. One viewer e-mailed to say:
"I work at home and listen and watch news a great deal. This is the first time I have ever written to complain about what I usually consider to be a good unbiased service. However last night I was concerned that on News 24 (6 ish) the item on Tony Blair attending the Bevis Marks Synagogue to mark the anniversary of Cromwell's readmittance of the Jews was immediately followed by coverage of an incident in Israel, where criticism was levelled at Israel. I am Jewish but not a Zionist and I am concerned that in most viewers minds these two items are inextricably linked. They are not! I would like to know how the running order is decided and whether sensitivity plays any part."
The Guardian: "The 大象传媒 is planning to launch a weekly news magazine linked to its flagship news programmes Newsnight and Panorama" ()
The Times: "Critics of the 大象传媒 often accuse it of political bias. Rageh Omaar exemplifies the untruth of the charge" ()
The Guardian: "The 大象传媒's new media chief says that by 2013 the corporation's online operation will cost licence fee payers the equivalent of just "one music download" a month" ()
