- Craig Oliver
- 31 Aug 06, 12:00 PM
Recent audience research came back with one big message: "We want all sides of the story."
We try to challenge the received wisdom on a daily basis - but one of the most interesting examples of this came in our coverage of the decision to make it illegal to view violent porn.
Teacher Jane Longhurst was killed by a man who was was obsessed with violent pornography (he is in the process of appealing against a murder conviction). The sites show torture, murder, gang rape鈥ou get the picture. There's clearly a market for this kind of stuff, and yesterday Jane's mother .
Our cameraman, correspondent and producer spent the day looking into the story. They discovered that much of the material is faked - though a lot is extremely convincing. As other 大象传媒 outlets told the story there was an interesting audience response that challenged the assumption of many that there would be almost universal revulsion.
Rod McKenzie, editor of Radio 1 Newsbeat, sent round an e-mail letting us know the text messages that some of the station's listeners were sending in. They included:
• This is banning S&M
• extreme net porn is staged and consensual why ban it
• You can't say what violence is in porn, where is the line crossed ? Is a porn star who's not really up for it that day being treated violently?
• what happens between consenting adults shouldn't carry the risk of going to court
• there's nothing wrong with sexual experimentation S&M between consenting adults behind closed doors or online
It was a response we hadn't entirely expected - and Denise Mahoney (right) reflected it in her item on the Ten O'Clock News (watch it here).
So, while it was important to give the police and Mrs Longhurst due weight, it was also important to use our position post-watershed to show as much as we could - within the bounds of taste and decency - and raise the questions: can watching this material really trigger murder? If it can't, should we really ban the stuff that is clearly faked and criminalise those who view it?
Craig Oliver is editor of 大象传媒 News at Six and 大象传媒 News at Ten
- Steve Herrmann
- 31 Aug 06, 09:54 AM
OK - so you didn鈥檛 like all of it.
We've received a lot of comments about the site design changes (discussed here last week). These have been hugely useful, so many thanks. It鈥檚 not a comprehensive, scientific sample but - taken together with other feedback we鈥檝e had - there are a few clear messages, so here鈥檚 a summary with some replies.
The local news personalisation and 'most read' features have been popular. The greater prominence for audio and video got mixed reviews. The link in the banner is welcomed by some as a way of getting quickly to latest TV bulletins and video news summaries. Others say they don鈥檛 use video much on the web so they don鈥檛 need it.
We鈥檙e not going to completely satisfy everyone, but audio/video usage is on the increase and we believe it鈥檚 an important part of what we have to offer - so it鈥檚 going to stay well-signposted on the page.
The thing that bothered a lot of you was the fact that the audio/video section in the middle of the page is too obtrusive and doesn鈥檛 stay hidden on return visits once you鈥檝e closed it. It鈥檚 a good point and we鈥檙e going to revisit the way we鈥檝e implemented that part of the page.
Thanks to Dan for pointing out that there鈥檚 a whole discussion about the new A/V area . Not sure whether to be pleased or alarmed about this...
As for the new banner, some like it, others think it鈥檚 too big or don鈥檛 like the way the 大象传媒 News logo is now in the top left rather than across the top. In fact the new banner is about ten pixels higher. We鈥檙e using that space to promote popular TV and radio news programmes and our designers felt that any trade-offs about size of the logo would be solved by moving it towards the top left - the most noticeable space on a web site. The logo is more in line with that used by TV News, and we are keen on consistency of the visual brand.
A couple of people lamented the loss of the sport and weather coloured graphics on the left-hand side of the page. We adopted straightforward text links as part of a general move to reduce visual clutter on the page and to bring those links into line with the rest.
News services 鈥 can鈥檛 we think of a better term for the mobile alerts, news feeds, podcasts etc? I鈥檓 afraid we can鈥檛 鈥 feel free to make suggestions though.
In answer to some of the other, miscellaneous questions:
• Usage of audio/video shoots up for big stories.
• We鈥檝e forwarded the comments about the weather service on to the 大象传媒 Weather site.
• For those who really only want a simple list of headlines there are always the RSS feeds or even which we link to in our banner.
• We changed the 鈥楧on鈥檛 miss鈥 labelling recently because we thought it didn鈥檛 work with all the content 鈥 and 鈥楩eatures, views, analysis鈥 is a better description for this area of the page.
And just quickly... yes we did do some user testing before we made the changes, and no we really didn鈥檛 lead the site with the story about the risk to the basil crop in Italy, though it did indeed feature on the front page. We try and reflect a wide range of stories on the front page 鈥 not just the most serious of the day.
Thanks again to everyone who commented 鈥 if your question hasn鈥檛 been answered by any of the above and you would still like a reply let me know.
Lastly 鈥 aside from those who told us they approved of the whole thing, this was our favourite bit of feedback 鈥 from Dominic:
"I hadn鈥檛 noticed any changes. Is that a good thing?"
Steve Herrmann is editor of the
Financial Times: "Ashley Highfield, head of the 大象传媒鈥檚 new 鈥渇uture media and technology鈥 division, answers questions from readers." ()
The Times: "The 14-year-old brother of a Pakistani journalist working for the 大象传媒 was found murdered yesterday in a remote tribal area." ()
