- Kevin Marsh
- 14 Jul 06, 03:01 PM
Pity the pedant and the pedagogue.
There are two things that fuel the 大象传媒 licence payer鈥檚 wrath more than any thing else; language and impartiality.
Look what happened when my colleague Jon Williams tried to set out the 大象传媒鈥檚 thoughts around one small aspect of usage 鈥 the terminology we apply to events in Israel/the Palestinian territories.
His posting attracted more than 150 comments 鈥 all of them deeply felt, most claiming to find unconscious bias, inconsistency or injustice in our usages. Right to have that level of debate. Everyone has to pay, everyone has a say. Simple really.
But the comments taken together sum up the problem; with impartiality and with language everyone believes they鈥檙e right. With the first, that鈥檚 true by definition; with the second, it鈥檚 true by virtue of dimly remembered days spent parsing in fusty schoolrooms.
The pedant is condemned to an unhappy life watching infinitives split, singular nouns of multitude pluralised and "militate" confused with "mitigate" by what he/she sees as the language鈥檚 slouching hoodies.
The pedagogue 鈥 i.e. me/us/ 鈥 is no happier. I challenge anyone to take those 150 comments attached to Jon Williams' posting and synthesise a single paragraph that could be given to every 大象传媒 journalist which, if it were followed, would make everyone happy.
Which is a pity鈥 because The College has to attempt to do something very like that.
Only yesterday, I was commissioning two big pieces of work for the College website; a language course and an online, interactive style guide.
Both have to confront the problems of language and impartiality; neither can be pre- or proscriptive. That鈥檚 partly because of the nature of both beasts 鈥 as discussed 鈥 but it鈥檚 also because of the nature of the organisation.
There are 8,500 journalists in the 大象传媒 producing thousands of hours of output each month 鈥 most of it for English speaking audiences here in the UK, some not. Some output is very formal, most is not. Some is scripted for 大象传媒 staff or stars to present, most is live and involves outside guests.
The idea that you could have a single stone tablet 鈥 like the Economist or FT has, setting out in detail the 鈥渉ouse style鈥, words to be used and words not to be used 鈥 and that every 大象传媒 journalist and contributor be forced to follow it is nonsense.
Would anyone really expect every interviewee on every 大象传媒 programme to ingest the 鈥渉ouse style鈥 before appearing... or that 大象传媒 presenters should correct and reprimand them on every departure?
You might get the 85 or so journalists on a small paper to agree on the use of the apostrophe or on the difference between 鈥渋nsurgency鈥 and 鈥渞esistance鈥. It鈥檚 impossible to achieve that uniformity in an organisation with a hundred times the staff and more than a hundred times the output.
Apart from anything else, there exist in the 大象传媒 the very experts 鈥 some of them dissenting on a particular point 鈥 on whose judgments other organisations base their preferred usages.
All that we pedagogues can do 鈥 with both language teaching and style guides 鈥 is to describe the consensus, the implications of departing from that consensus and the major variants. We can indicate preferences and usages that, for the time being, are judged to be better than others.
We can draw attention to words and phrases that are contentious and we can suggest usages that avoid the pitfalls of bias, unconscious or otherwise. From time to time, the organisation will take a view that a particular word or phrase, while not perfect, is the best anyone can do... and it鈥檚 our job to make sure everyone knows about that judgment and makes every effort to apply it.
And we can describe the changes happening around us. Has the battle to save the first meaning of 鈥渁nticipate鈥 been lost? Does it now confuse more than it clarifies to draw any distinction between it and 鈥渆xpect鈥?
But the idea that we can or should instruct the 大象传媒鈥檚 8,500 journalists to use a single version of the English language fixed at some arbitrary point in time and culture, or dictate precise terms that everyone agrees are neutral or impartial 鈥 if we could ever find them 鈥 is fanciful and, probably, wrong.
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 大象传媒 College of Journalism
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 大象传媒 College of Journalism
- Daniel Pearl
- 14 Jul 06, 12:10 PM
Peter's on holiday this week. We sent him to an isolated cottage in south-west France with his family. He has no internet access and we confiscated his mobile phone.
So in his absence I thought I'd write a few thoughts this week. I'm probably way behind the internet curve, but I only recently discovered the joys of ...
Here at the 大象传媒 we're obliged to take copyright issues extremely seriously. Producers are constantly in fear of broadcasting uncleared pictures, or discovering, as we did the other day, that five seconds of archive was to cost us over 拢1000 (you can imagine how that went down with Peter when he found out). Well, on Wednesday morning I came in to find an email from the agent of rock photographer - he'd spotted an uncleared picture we'd used in Robin Denselow's obituary of Pink Floyd's .
Mick was extremely gracious and only charged us a small fee. However it got me thinking - how does YouTube get away with it? Newsnight's Syd Barrett film is on YouTube for anyone to find - and for anyone to judge whether Mick's photo was worth paying for (I'd argue it was). So, who put our film up there? Has Mick seen it and if so, who has paid him his small fee for the use of his picture? So far 1,125 people have viewed the film via YouTube, admittedly a small number, but none the less, surely copyright is copyright?
On Tuesday the producer of the item, Rebecca, had great difficulty in finding clearable pictures of Syd that she could use. In fact the film came close to not being broadcast - at 11pm they were still looking for shots of the rock recluse. But had Rebecca looked on YouTube and searched for Syd she would have founds reams of footage - everything from homemade tributes to a stalker movie someone made discreetly following Syd around Cambridge.
Now how much of this material is infringing copyright? And what would have happened if we'd just taken it and reused it on Newsnight? I guess I would have received a load of emails asking for money. So why is there one rule for us and another for YouTube? Perhaps someone could explain.
In fact if you search for Newsnight on YouTube you'll find a whole range of our films and discussions. Currently, over 20,000 people have watched Kirsty's interview with Pete Doherty - a smaller number (71) have watched Peter Marshall's expose of British corruption in Saudi contracts - or as described on YouTube: "An exclusive and gutsy report from the beebs flagship news programme." As more and more people get their TV over the web, these questions are bound to become more important.
Mick's agent is about to get very busy.
Daniel Pearl is deputy editor of Newsnight
Daniel Pearl is deputy editor of the Ten O'Clock News
- Tim Bailey
- 14 Jul 06, 11:36 AM
Many listeners are concerned about the graphic content of some our radio reports. This is an example of editing on the grounds of taste. The original report came from our correspondent in Baghdad, and dealt with a video that showed the mutilated bodies of American servicemen. The soldiers had apparently been killed in retaliation for the death of an Iraqi girl.
The first paragraph of the original report included this phrase: "The camera lingers over the bodies of two American soldiers. Their torsos are terribly mutilated, one is headless, the head is swung in front of the camera. Now and then a foot appears to prod a lifeless corpse."
This was cut as I thought it was too strong for a teatime audience (although it is only fair to say not everyone here agreed). And this is what was broadcast: "The camera lingers over the bodies of two American soldiers. Their torsos are terribly mutilated; one is headless."
My own view was that conveyed a sufficiently powerful image.
Tim Bailey is editor of the Radio 4 Six O'Clock News
Tim Bailey is editor of the Radio 4 Six O'Clock News
- Husain Husaini
- 14 Jul 06, 10:01 AM
As head of news at the Asian Network, I work out of three offices, in Leicester, London and Birmingham. Of course I wasn't in any of them when news came through about the bombs in Mumbai. The first I heard of it was when I idly looked at my mobile phone - which was on silent during the meeting I was in. "Four missed calls". There was also a text from a colleague at 大象传媒 World Service asking if I was "sending" to Mumbai. "Sending" is the journalist jargon for getting a reporter to a location.
So I phone the office, find out what we know so far and start telling people to do things. But it becomes clear that the team writing our news bulletins in Leicester and the one making the Adil Ray Drive programme in Birmingham are way ahead of me. They are doing a textbook job in breaking news. Adil himself is relatively new to this kind of story but I think anyone listening would agree he performed superbly: always calm, always trying to find out more and always clear about what we really know and what only think has happened.
That leaves me with the problem of whether to "send". My instinct is of course "yes". But the Asian Network is not a huge station and doesn't have that much money for big trips. We have already spent a fair amount this month sending a reporter to Pakistan to cover the case of - a Leeds man on death row in Islamabad. A "send" to Mumbai will also mean that I have less to spend on what I think is our core business: covering the lives and concerns of British Asians. The Asian Network can also use all the other 大象传媒 reporters who are rushing to the scene too. Even so, I take the view that for the Asian network to cover this story as well as our listeners will expect, we need to be there.
It was a bit of a scramble. We decide to send Dil Neiyyar (our London reporter) and Rifat Jawaid (our languages editor). Dil spends the afternoon getting a visa from the Indian High Commission and his equipment together. Rifat rushes to Heathrow from Birmingham. We start compiling the appropriate hazard assessment forms. Safety is crucial. As well as the possibility of more bombs, there is the fear of communal violence and more mundanely the intense heat. Both Rifat and Dil have done the 大象传媒's "hostile environment" course. Mumbai isn't a war zone, but this intense training really helps reporters assess the risks on the ground.
Eight thirty in the evening and a nightmare call comes. Visa delays mean they've missed the flight. More money needed for another one. Got to do it now, just hope we get a refund for the first flight.
They arrive early the next day and are on air almost immediately. Between them they work for our morning programmes, our lunchtime news programme "The Wrap" and for Adil's show again. Rifat appears on our languages shows through the evening. They head off around Mumbai and get some terrific material: voices of real Mumbai citizens responding to this terrifying attack. I'm left with a strong impression of a defiant city refusing to stop living their lives and refusing to blame the many Muslims in their city. And the good news is we did get our first flights refunded. So more money in the pot for next time.
Husain Husaini is head of news at the Asian Network
The Times: People column reports that the 大象传媒's Politics Show has secured an interview with Tony Blair this week. ()
The Times: "The 大象传媒 Proms season that opens tonight features not a single piece of music composed or conducted by a woman." ()
