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The Editors

Editors in tray
Steve Herrmann

World news - in broadband


If you are looking at the 大象传媒 News website from outside the UK there are some new developments to tell you about.

We are upgrading the technical quality of the video on the site for users overseas so that anyone anywhere in the world with a high speed internet connection can watch the 大象传媒鈥檚 news reports in broadband quality.

Until now this has only been possible for users in the UK - we鈥檝e been restricted from providing the same level of service internationally by the cost of serving broadband quality video. We did not want the 大象传媒鈥檚 UK licence fee payers meeting this cost and in effect subsidising the service for people outside the UK.

Now, with the help of our partners in 大象传媒 World, the 大象传媒鈥檚 commercially funded international TV news channel, we are making our broadband video news service available internationally. 大象传媒 World is funded by advertising and subscription revenue and the cost of the improved video service will be met by advertising around the broadband news clips.

So if you are viewing video from outside the UK you may see a short commercial before your clip plays. If you want to watch clips ad-free, you can still choose to keep the same narrowband video service we have offered you internationally up to now.

If you click on a video link and you are outside the UK you will see a 鈥渕edia selector鈥 pop-up window with boxes allowing you to choose Windows or Real media, narrowband or high quality video. You can use the preferences link on the News Player to change your choices at any time.

If you have chosen broadband video, the News Player will launch and on some occasions a short commercial will play before the clip you've chosen. Adverts will not appear alongside news clips when it would be insensitive for them to do so.

We hope that for most users a short commercial will be a worthwhile trade-off in order to be able to watch some of the best TV correspondents in the business reporting from around the world, in high quality.

For the first time on the website we will also provide a regularly updated video summary of international news from our colleagues in the newsroom of 大象传媒 World television. You鈥檒l see a link to it on the front of the international edition of the site.

A decade ago watching video online was the preserve of a small, dedicated and patient group of internet pioneers. Today millions use the web daily to watch and listen to all kinds of audio and video content. Traffic to audio and video on this website has continued to grow as more people switch to broadband.

We want to make sure we can continue to provide all our users around the world with top quality video news, and making these changes will allow us to do that.

I hope that if you are outside the UK you will appreciate the improved quality of our news video. Give it a try and if you do have comments or questions, I鈥檇 like to hear them.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the

Alistair Burnett

Crisis? What crisis?


Crisis is a word much loved by journalists but has it become so overused that it has lost its meaning?

The World TonightIt's been widely employed in the past couple of weeks in relation to the floods and relations with Russia, for instance. So I looked it up in the dictionary to remind myself what it means in the world outside of journalism. Of the several meanings given, this one is the nearest to sense in which journalists use it...

    'a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change'

It seems to me that many journalists have lost sight of the last part about 'leading to a decisive change'.

And before I'm accused of being holier than thou, I confess that The World Tonight has not been immune from doing this - last week we described the diplomatic dispute between London and Moscow as a 'crisis' and I winced. In my feedback to the output editor (we dissect the programme after each edition to decide what worked, what didn't and why) I said it didn't constitute a crisis in my view because it is too early to say if there will be permanent damage.

Mind you, at least we didn't compare the dispute to the Cold War, which many of our colleagues in the press have done, and which led the Russia expert, Robert Service, to go on the Today programme and that - and I paraphrase - 'I knew the Cold War and this ain't no Cold War'.

When it comes to the floods, the areas affected will return to normal eventually when the waters recede, although it may have a more permanent impact on the lives of some of the people who have had their homes flooded and don't have insurance. So how much should we talk of a crisis?

One of the values 大象传媒 journalism puts great emphasis on trying to live up to is accuracy. On top of that, language is the most basic of tools for a journalist. So using it accurately is essential. Though dramatic words help make our stories stand out, we have to guard very carefully against being tempted into hyperbole.

Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight

Host

大象传媒 in the news, Thursday

  • Host
  • 26 Jul 07, 08:27 AM

Time magazine: A report on the recent scandals affecting broadcasting in the UK ()

The Telegraph: A preview of the 大象传媒's on-demand iPlayer service, which is due to launch tomorrow. ()

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