- James Stephenson
- 21 Sep 06, 07:58 PM
I've been suffering from flashbacks over the last couple of weeks. In the early nineties I produced Question Time and now I find myself back in the scanner - this time watching over the final preparations for the new series.
The show is made for the 大象传媒 by independent producer . It's a strange feeling being here as the questions come in from the audience, and not being involved in picking which ones will get asked. That's the job of Ed Havard (the programme editor) with David Dimbleby and the team. I'm here for them to talk to if they run into any problems - oh, and to get picked on without warning by David to ask a question during the late afternoon rehearsal.
Question Time has given the public a chance to grapple with the politicians since it started in 1979. Now we're going to give people the chance to suggest questions in advance via the website.
We're also launching a Question Time vodcast. It's a 20 minute version of the show available for video download via . But the real test of the show is whether the audience in the studio gets stuck into the debate and the panellists - Charles Kennedy, Ann Widdecombe, Harriet Harman, Tariq Ali and Sir Christopher Meyer. I'm sure they will.
James Stephenson is chief of the Jerusalem bureau
- Peter Rippon
- 21 Sep 06, 04:28 PM
I saw a fascinating vision of the future (or do I mean the present?) on the seafront in Brighton this week.
It happened on the day Charles Kennedy addressed the Liberal Democrat party conference. Our reporter, Sean Curran, went to capture the atmosphere as Mr K walked the hundred yards from his hotel to the conference centre. He found it harder than normal because the media scrum was huge - and despite having a fine set of elbows Sean struggled to get near the man himself.
Watching the TV pictures of our man getting bumped and buffeted I realised why. The usual TV crews, snappers, scribblers and radio hacks are having to contend with a new tribe. In the scrum there was Michael White from the Guardian trying to record a few words with Charlie for .
Later in the hall there was Matthew Parris from the Times recording his own thoughts for , and bizarrely at one point the appeared to be being followed by a TV crew.
I think it was Greg Dyke who commented that when it comes to the new media world we are all eating each others' lunch. Given I am now writing this blog I guess he means me too. Bon appetit.
Peter Rippon is editor of World at One, PM and Broadcasting House
- Richard Porter
- 21 Sep 06, 01:44 PM
If you'd been watching 大象传媒 World at 23:50 GMT last night, you would have seen a report about the Thai prime minister arriving in London, after flying from the United Nations in New York.
Except in Thailand, however. There, just as the report began, a caption appeared in place of our signal to say "programming will resume shortly" - and then, bizarrely, a montage of Western movie stars appeared. We'd been censored... as we have been since the coup began on Tuesday.
Things have got a little better. Initially we were taken off air completely, as were CNN. We re-appeared yesterday morning, Thai time, but since then have both been subject to selective censorship.
Footage of the coup leaders appears to be allowed to go out uncensored, but anything involving Thaksin Shinawatra is being blocked. Does this mean, however, that the Thai people know nothing of what he is saying?
I doubt it very much. In this digital age, information travels freely - if it's not by satellite television, it's via email, the Internet, or by SMS. The crude censorship being deployed in Thailand may hark back to an age when Governments really could control all the information, and surely those days are gone.
Incidentally, we know exactly what's happening thanks to our colleagues at , based at . They have been carefully monitoring all the media reports in Thailand, and I'm grateful to them for providing us with the necessary information.
So last night they were able to tell us more details about the terms of the censorship, by monitoring a report on the Thai Channel 9. This is the text of the statement read out:
"Having successfully seized the executive power of the country, the Administrative Reform Committee under the Democratic System with the King as the Head of State commands the ICT Ministry to censor, prevent, block out, and destroy dissemination of information in the information technology system, transmitted through all communication networks, that contains articles, messages, verbal speech or any other discourse that might undermine the reform for democracy under constitutional monarchy as already specified in the Administrative Reform Committee Under the Democratic System With the King as the Head of State's earlier announcement."
Perhaps we should be grateful that at least they're admitting to censoring the media. This morning there was a bit more detail to accompany that statement. 大象传媒 Monitoring reports the Thai Nation newspaper's website as saying...
"The permanent secretary for Information and Communications Technology Ministry Thursday (21 Sep) held a meeting with representatives of various media. Kraisorn Pornsutee, the permanent secretary, asked the media representatives to cancel the show of SMS comments of audience on TVs as well as cancelling phone-in comments on radio programmes. Those attending the meeting were representatives of state firms, website operators, mobile phone operators, print and electronic media. The meeting took place at 13:30 local time (06:30 GMT). Kraisorn also asked the website operators to monitor comments on their webboard to screen out provocative comments."
So the authorities are trying to restrict the new media as well as the "traditional". As I've said, I doubt if that can really be effective. But it would be interesting to see what you think about that - especially if you're in Thailand...
Richard Porter is head of
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