May 5, 2006 by Hugh Levinson

what does it mean for the BBC?

The day after the forum, the BBC held it’s own internal meeting to digest and reflect some of the We Media thinking, with a panel chaired by Richard Sambrook, director of global news. The contributors were : Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices: Dan Gillmor, Director of the Center for Citizen Media and Author of We Media: Akwe Amosu of the Open Society Institute and founder of AllAfrica.com: and Salah Negm, newly appointed News Editor for BBC Arabic TV Service, and former Director of News at Al Arabiyah.

Vin Ray, the head of the BBC’s new college of journalism kicked things off by asking what does the participatory journalism phenomenon mean for the BBC’s journalism. Is it an addition? Or an alternative? Plus he got big yuks by a digression into the joys of Fisking, as defined by Wikipedia.

Richard kicked off by asking how many of the roughly 100 staff there regularly read blogs: about 30%
And how many wrote one?: 6 or so.

Then he asked the panel: what is it about participatory media that really changes the relationship between the BBC, say, and its audience?
Gillmor: It’s a shift from lecture mode to a conversation/seminar. The BBC can bring former audience/participants into the journalism itself, engaging them in your conversation. It’s necessary, but not easy.

Sambrook: Examples?
Gillmor: Disasters are easier to find eg LA Times editorial wiki. But they shouldn’t have given up. You should keep at it.

Sambrook: How’s it playing out in Africa?
Amosu: Newspapers and broadcasters were liberalised in early ’90s and brought in bright people, but there’s no experience with which to build ethical practices. Not up to standards of best of international media. So blogs, although rare (perhaps 1000 across the continent) are often of comparable if not better standard.

Sambrook: Do they hold governments and mainstream media to account?
Amosu: Absolutely. eg Addis Ferengi, still blogging about Ethiopia, but from abroad, since death threats.

Sambrook: What’s been the impact of satellite channels on the Middle East?
Negm: Nowadays no real difference between satellite and terrestrial TV. 154 satellite channels now, including semi-porn. Blogging is very popular but there are lots of blogs financed by poliitical entities or rich businessmen to affect public opinion. Also used a lot to affect the stock market eg in Saudi Arabia.

Question from floor: Who should choose which voices to amplify and how?
MacKinnon: Blogs are sources – just like other journalistic sources. The issues are the same. Is this person credible? What are the biases? In the US some news organisations are thinking that issues raised by blogs reflect the voice of the people. They don’t. Bloggers tend to be white middle-class people with time and broadband access.
Gillmor: Transparency is not a traditional journalistic principle. One we need to add. Also need to help improve media literacy and push up our internal BS meter. We need to come clear about the conflicts and process of journalism.

Q from floor: The BBC can find stories from blogs, source talent, aggregate or produce our own blogs. Which shouldn’t we do?
Amosu: I have a read problem with journalists doing their own blogs. It should be in the story.
Gillmor: Could be in newspaper tradition of “reporter’s notebook”
MacKinnon: I found it a good way of including the material that didn’t fit in a 2 minute TV story eg on the complexity of covering North Korea.
Amosu: More and more blogs are now declaring their disclosure rules.

Q from floor: tips to make the BBC an attractive place for public storytelling
Gillmor: The word is community – creating communities around geography or interest. Would suggest stories should say “here’s what we don’t know” and invite others to fill in the gap.
MacKinnon: good example is radioopensource – stories come from listeners/bloggers and they often return to stories later.

TAG: wemedia