SacredFacts

Post of the year?

Couldn't have put it better myself:

http://www.43folders.com/better

More Quality Journalism

Whoops here we go again, this time in The Independent. Why check the facts when you can just recycle the cuttings?

Btw if anyone is thinking of applying, Im sorry to disappoint you but it pays considerably less than the reported £300,000 pa. Actually the correct salary is published each year in the World Service Annual Report. But checking that would require a little effort, obviously. 

Bernard Crick

I'm sorry to hear of the death of Bernard Crick. He taught me when I did an MSc at Birkbeck College in the 1980s - and could be relied upon for a mischievous joke and a twinkling eye as he applied his considerable mind to debunking whatever loose thinking or pomposity came within range. I last saw him a couple of years ago as he completed his work on citizenship for the Government - we agreed to have lunch but sadly never got around to it. "In Defence of Politics" is still one of the best primers and texts on the messy business of democracy.

Quality journalism?

The London Evening Standard, "London's Quality Newspaper", ran this on the front page of its website and in its diary column today:

It’s jobs for the boys time at the World Service

After the sacking of Ed Stourton and the retention of Jonathan Ross, BBC decision-making seems opaque to outsiders. So is Auntie really now planning to parachute Richard Sambrook into the position of Director of the World Service without doing a proper external trawl for candidates or advertising outside the BBC?

Ex-BBC types are getting very exercised about the matter. The post has been advertised in Ariel, the BBC’s in-house magazine, but the World Service press office has confirmed that it will not be advertised outside. A spokesman for the BBC informs me: “The position of Director, BBC World Service, will be advertised internally. This is standard BBC practice and, if no suitable candidate is found through this process, then the search will be widened.” As yet there is no news as to when the new appointment will be announced.

The belief is the position is being kept open for Sambrook...

Hmmmm...except:

1. Im not a candidate for the job, because

2. it reports to me and I will be deciding who gets it. 

3. A simple phone call by the Standard could have established that, although I recognise how inconvenient the facts can be when they knock down a story on a quiet Friday. 

As for the Daily Telegraph reporter who excitedly followed this item up telling our press office it had the makings of a "Front Page Piece"... let's trust that even on a pre-Christmas Saturday they can find something better, or at least true, to report...

After the sacking of Ed Stourton and the retention of Jonathan Ross, BBC decision-making seems opaque to outsiders. So is Auntie really now planning to parachute Richard Sambrook into the position of Director of the World Service without doing a proper external trawl for candidates or advertising outside the BBC?

Ex-BBC types are getting very exercised about the matter. The post has been advertised in Ariel, the BBC’s in-house magazine, but the World Service press office has confirmed that it will not be advertised outside. A spokesman for the BBC informs me: “The position of Director, BBC World Service, will be advertised internally. This is standard BBC practice and, if no suitable candidate is found through this process, then the search will be widened.” As yet there is no news as to when the new appointment will be announced.

The belief is the position is being kept open for Sambrook...

Hmmmm...except:

1. Im not a candidate for the job, because

2. it reports to me and I will be deciding who gets it. 

3. A simple phone call by the Standard could have established that, although I recognise how inconvenient the facts can be when they knock down a story on a quiet Friday. 

As for the Daily Telegraph reporter who excitedly followed this item up telling our press office it had the makings of a "Front Page Piece"... let's trust that even on a pre-Christmas Saturday they can find something better, or at least true, to report...

More online journalists jailed

Berkman Center reports:

"For the first time in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ prison census, more online journalists than traditional journalists are now in jail. From the press release: 'Reflecting the rising influence of online reporting and commentary, more Internet journalists are jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium…45 percent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors. Online journalists represent the largest professional category for the first time in CPJ’s prison census...'"

May as well laugh...

Jon Stewart on the newspaper crisis

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Final Edition Edition

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

HT : Steve Outing

The Media and Democracy

Last week I was invited to a conference organised by The Ditchley Foundation and The World Service Trust on the Media and Democracy. It was a gathering of media executives, academics, politicians, NGOs and others - held under the Chatham House Rule, so I can only talk about the content, not who said what. However, Polis DIrector Charlie Beckett was there and has blogged his thoughts and also re-produced the final thoughts of the conference Rapporteur, George Brock of The Times. Jeff Jarvis has , as a wide-eyed american, blogged about the Ditchley experience. (UPDATE: and his thoughts on the discussion. And Adrian Monck includes Ditchley Director, Sir Jeremy Greenstock's report on the conference.)

 

One intriguing, and worrying thought emerged. It is more than possible that in the UK (and the US and elsewhere) we will soon see major cities without a newspaper. And however good, local radio cannot perform as detailed or local a function. What would happen? What would be lost? Would the MPs, councillors, civic leaders get together to discuss the impact on local democracy? Would the population care that they no longer knew what was happening in their courts or the decisions their councils were taking? What would they decide to do and how would they pay for it? Discuss

Reading Russia

Arkady Ostrovsky in The Economist suggests Russia is both a recovering superpower and a corrupt oligarchy - with a market economy, of sorts. 

BBC Monitoring reports on the  Russian media industry under pressure as economic downturn starts to bite at the start of the economic downturn.

The Reuters Institute at Oxford University has recently published a study of the internet in Russia and specifically the role it played - and didn't play- during the recent election.