SacredFacts

Back to Budapest

I'm in Budapest for the General Assembly of the EBU - the annual gathering of delegates from 75 TV stations in 56 countries (the EBU has an elastic definition of Europe). We review the operations of the EBU, discuss common concerns and interests (see the post below), and set priorities for the year ahead for this union of public broadcasters.
The last time I was in Budapest was in 1992, just after the collapse of communism, when I was invited to hold some workshops to help the state broadcaster learn how to cover open and fair elections. They'd never done so before. After three days of intensive seminars and exercises at a lodge in the snowy mountains we ended with a question and answer session. Finally one senior, elderly, thick-set manager said: "Mr Sambrook, this has all been interesting but you have failed to explain the most important thing."
"Really? what's that?"
"Who tells us what we can say?"

(Hmmmm. You remember where we started three days ago....)

In 2006, the EBU held a conference in Budapest called "From Secret Service to Public Service" - again in support of the state broadcaster struggling to free itself of political influence.
Today MTV (Magyar TV) is about to move - from the old stock exchange building close to Parliament, across the Danube to a new digital HQ. The geographical symbolism however may be stronger than the reality. Funding is still short and there is no agreement on who the next President of the broadcaster should be.

Biting the hand that's stopped feeding you...

Leading a public broadcaster can be a perilous occupation, as we know. Take France for example. At the start of 2008 President Sarkozy decided there should be no advertising on French public television. (For British readers, it's common for public broadcasters to take advertising as well as public funds in other parts of the world). This would obviously leave a big funding gap for France Television to fill. There have been promises of staged funding and special grants to help bridge the problem - but no agreement.

Then on Monday Sarkozy criticised the broadcaster saying he could see no difference between what they did and what the commercial channels did (by implication - questioning the value of the public funding). This follows increasingly tense relations between France Television and the government. Sarkozy recently said in future he would personally appoint the President of the Public Broadcaster - in the past it was left to the independent regulator.

So today the Director General Patrick de Carolis hit back. In an article in Le Figaro he said: "When someone says that there are no differences between public and private programming, I find that false, stupid and ... profoundly unjust. In the last three years we have tried hard to make respectable television and I know that we are respected.'' And he suggested if the funding needed wasn't agreed by September he would resign.

He may not be given the choice. Calling the President "stupid" is not usually career enhancing.

Two themes here: the independence of public broadcasting under attack by politicians who do not respect it (acknowledging of course that all PSB's need to reform and need to be accountable).

And a wider battle about the right balance in the future of the media between the market and public intervention. In the UK, it's played out through OfCom reviews which are gentlemanly in comparison with other countries. Just across the channel, it's an altogether tougher game.

(Disclosure: I sit on the Executive Board of the EBU with Patrick de Carolis)

Web culture v. slow reading: does your brain hurt?

If you havn't picked up on it already you need to sort out your rss feeds. But there's been a really interesting debate breaking out about whether the internet changes the way you think. I've missed the moment but have been meaning to join in for a week or so. It started with Nicholas Carr in The Atlantic suggesting Google (now a synonym for the web) might be making us stupid. Actually his argument is more subtle but reflects what a number of others have observed: regular web reading and browsing makes it harder to concentrate on a tough read in a book. Among those to pick up on it were Bill Thompson who seems to conclude that rather than changing our brains, online culture simply makes us lazy. Along the way he cites John Battelle's repudiation of Carr and cites Susan Greenfield's book suggesting that screen culture is less enriching than the pages of a book. A theme picked up by John Naughton in The Observer, and doubtless a few others I've missed, who suggests it's not a question of good or bad - just evolution.

Nothing very new here. My father had a book given to him as a boy on "the Art of Reading" - collected lectures from Arthur Quiller Couch - in an attempt to encourage concentration and serious study and combat what he called his "butterfly mind" (he would have been at home on the web). Serious instruction is an impulse which still lingers in some quarters.

For my part, I definitely find it harder to read than I used to but put that down to lack of time and fatigue. My kids spend less time reading than I did at their age - but then they have much more choice. I do think that the linking culture on the net, whilst wonderful, encourages a superficial engagement with subjects rather than immersion. (Take this topic for example!).
When I read a book I also make connections, but they take longer and are deeper to come to fruition. So reading Tony Judt's latest book on the Twentieth Century, for example, will take me a week but will plant thoughts and connections which will take several more weeks to uncover or get round to reading in turn. But I will understand a lot more than I would from scanning some links and Googling. No problem with enjoying the benefits of both of course.
Maybe after calls for slow-food and slow-journalism it's time to remind ourselves about slow-reading.

Huffington - Global and Local

Arianna Huffington has been in London this week meeting politicians, newspaper editors and, today, with the BBC. She did multiple interviews and spoke to a lunchtime gathering of journalists and editors about The Huffington Post, journalism and the US elections. The site's a remarkable achievement in just three years - fuelled by top drawer contacts and serious financial backing.

Now she says they are going to go local by launching a series of city sites (eg Huffington- Chicago) and go Global with an international edition. The first I can see working (more competition and problems for the US press) the latter I'm a bit more sceptical about. It's tough for pan-global, destination/ content sites as opposed to search or email portals. But it would be a brave person to say it wont work given her track record.

China and the Net

Ron Deibert, of Citizen Lab and the Open Net initiative, has been giving evidence to the US Congress on how China interferes with the internet and censors many sites. Citizen Lab works on the Psiphon software which allows users to circumvent blocking in some circumstances.

Reading his evidence two phrases leaped out at me:

During the Olympics, he suggests, China may reduce or eliminate controls over
access to popular English language websites, news services, and blogging
platforms, while keeping in place or even enhancing filters on the local language
equivalents. This policy would give outsiders the impression that restrictions are
minimal while targeting those sources of information that matter most for
domestic policy.

Let's look out for that one.

And, secondly...do as you would be done by:

criticism of China’s vast censorship, surveillance, and infowar practices rings hollow in light
of revelations of extra-legal surveillance of the Internet occurring in the United
States itself, or US military development of information warfare techniques that
propose to “fight and win wars in cyberspace.” Echoing the comments made
by my colleagues John Palfrey and Colin Maclay, the US government needs to
show the way by examining its own domestic and foreign policies with respect
to data retention, surveillance and information warfare. Only then will criticism
directed towards China and other countries like it carry the full moral weight it
presently lacks.

Flash Storytelling

A close look at my recent links would reveal a growing interest in the use of Flash to tell stories or support multimedia journalism. It can be incredibly powerful. Try these:

It's probably reasonable to ask if this is what the public wants. But whether it is or not, I'm going down the "teach yourself flash" route to see what happens...

Let me know of others you like.

BBC Arabic TV

I've been involved in many programme and channel launches in my time - but few as smooth as the launch of BBC Arabic TV. This was in no way due to anything I did - but was the result of many months of hard work by a great team. The outcome - a sharp, modern, TV news service that is also unquestionably BBC.

If you missed the launch tape you can see it again here.

And here is a piece I wrote for the BBC Editors blog the day before launch. Not all the commenters seem to be convinced by the idea of building bridges or in favour soft power, but they balance up by the end!

It's all about pictures

Everywhere I turn people are talking about video on the web.  You Tube is about to take live feeds. What took the TV industry 40 years (to move from scheduled to live services) has taken them about 18 months. SImilarly, everyone is playing with Qik - which allows you to live stream from your mobile phone and your audience to chat and message as you do so. Disappointing content so far however. (Apart of course from Robin at Cybersoc who has been playing with it...)

The Guardian two weeks ago featured DiggNation and BoingBoing TV as examples of the boom in new online video programmes.

Then there are sites like NextNewNetworks which allows people to effectively produce and schedule their own content.

Or if you want to engage with the broadcasters, for £60 you can become an Executive Producer at HaveYouGotTheNerve TV and collaborate on new formats and - maybe - get them commissioned.

And of course blogging is going video - with Seesmic and YahooLive for example. ("Yes this is what my built in webcam from my laptop on my desk looks like!")

All on top of aggregators like Blinkx, LiveStation or Internet TV like Joost.

On the other side of the ledger, Doughty St TV seems to have stopped at the end of last year presumably as its funder decided not to go on paying the bills, and some commenters think very few people are watching.

(ALthough the FT disagrees...talking about "websites such as vidShadow, Veoh and Youku dominating the list of the fastest growing websites in the UK. )

Dangerous to generalise, but the success of the BBC's iPlayer with half a million streams a day, suggests the appetite for online video is growing.

It's early days: easy to predict that video would be part of the next wave, much harder to get it to work in a strong and economically viable way.

However, it will happen, and it contributes to making online conversations more compelling and faster.

Basically, assume we can soon all be on air, live, to the world all the time. Wasn't there a movie about that?

Any other good video experiments? Please post below...

[UPDATE: Here's some more to try - launch your own channel with Mogulus.com - Live and recorded video, or Blogtv.com - you bring the webcam they "bring the stage"...or ustream.com, live webcasts streamed. And Rory Cellan Jones reviews FLixwagon on the BBC Tech Blog, dot.life. Blogging has gone video - we just need to find the ones worth watching.]

And try just watching the live stream of any of hundreds of channels on LiveNewsCameras.com or ChooseandWatch.com - please note not all of them legally streamed.

What if Saul Bass had done the titles for Star Wars?

Not yet a two way street..

Neil Thurman of City University has sent me the headlines of a study he has just completed on User interaction with news websites. It will be published in New Media and Society and is available from his University page.

Headlines:

Major news websites are struggling to make the most of readers' contributions due to factors such as the costs of moderation and the varying quality of user-generated content (UGC), whilst in return readers are not fully engaging with the UGC initiatives.

Thurman found that 'popular' debates on the BBC News website's 'Have Your Say' attracted contributions from just 0.05 per cent of the site's daily unique audience, and one fifth the page views of  'popular' news stories.
 
The research showed that the slow uptake of UGC by some editors was due in part to worries over legal liabilities. Furthermore most publications insisted on moderation because of concerns over: spelling, grammar and decency; duplication; unbalanced views; and a lack of newsworthiness amongst contributions. These issues had caused some websites to drop UGC altogether.

 
Allf Hermida discusses the findings at Reportr.Net

I'm not surprised - interaction has always been a minority sport. Reading key news websites it's easy to see there is often a tight community of regular commenters who represent a fraction of the total readership.
But this doesn't undermine the value of news organisations being open and responsive.

[UPDATE: Shane Richmond takes him to task for being out of date....and me for being uncritical!}