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What a Journalist Isn't

I'm sick and tired of the abuse journalists are getting at the moment. They don't deserve it, at least real journalists don't - ...

23 January 2012

IR News; Time To Relax Regulation?

Independent Local Radio in the 1970s had higher technical standards than BBC Radio 3.

I well remember Studio A at Pennine being taken off air for an hour each week so that the engineers could check the precise rotation speed of the record decks.

Technical perfection was just one of the stipulations of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Terrified by any prospect of commercial radio being accused of peddling 'pop and prattle' the regulator also limited each station's needle time to encourage 'meaningful speech' and commercials were strictly differentiated from programmes; hence 'we'll be back after this' when the presenter didn't actually go anywhere.

Now most of the stuffier rules have gone; no longer can a snap IBA inspection result in harassed producers looking for evidence at a moment's notice of 'programming in the last seven days aimed at listeners with disabilities', or whatever.

Just one area remains tightly regulated. Commercial radio news is in a time warp. With jobs under threat I believe it could be time for that to change.

10 January 2012

Monsters v Aliens

Beneath the surface in the teaching of journalism in higher education is a long running and unresolved philosophical conflict between the 'trainers' and the 'educators'.

In fact, an impartial observer would note very quickly that it's bizarre how Britain's universities have ended up training the majority of new journalists, given that the cultures of the newsroom and of the senior common room are poles apart.

02 January 2012

Diversions on Diversity

Every broadcast employer in the country believes in diversity.

It's normally enshrined in the mission statement. At the BBC they run training courses on it. Sky made it very clear to BJTC colleges that they expect us to work harder to train a diverse range of individuals in multi-platform news skills. Bauer, Global, GMG ... all champions of diversity.

Actually defining diversity is a bit more difficult. Everyone is now just about agreed that diversity should go beyond simplistic definitions of race and physical ability; a few black faces in the newsroom, and maybe a wheelchair user or two, isn't enough.

Social background is also now routinely accepted as a measure of diversity, as (to some degree) is a candidate's home postcode. The Beeb once memorably summed up the aim as being to have newsrooms full of people who 'look and sound like the people who watch and listen to the BBC'.

If only it was so straightforward.