A really stimulating and fascinating speech was made last Wednesday (27th Jan) at the COI as Richard Sambrook, gave us the benefit of his wisdom from 30 years at the BBC. Below is a summary of what he said. Please do comment.

The long view

Richard’s career started at a time when the print technology would be recognisable to a contemporary of Gutenberg and in the space of 35 years media has completely transformed and in particular what it means to be a journalist.

24/7 and multiplatform

When he started at the BBC he might have developed and revised a news story three times in a day–interspersed with breaks for refreshments at a local hostelry-for three broadcasts on radio.
Now the news is 24/7 and delivered across different platforms.

BBC restructured to reflect this change

Two examples

1. Single editors across platforms rather than a different editor for TV/radio/online.
   Which cut costs by 20 % as well.
2. Story communities now come together at the BBC to access the knowledge and expertise of the whole corporation on an issue.

It has only just begun

The BBC has moved from being a siloed linear broadcaster to something quite different. But in Richard’s view the process of change has only just begun.
For example what will it mean when the iPlayer is on your telly and not just your laptop?  And what will it mean when this is mobile on your phone or when iPad or son of iPad is in mass circulation? This could happen within a decade or less.

The process of change is continuous

When internal change is introduced it follows a recognisable pattern.
At first,Richard was thought to be mad and there was resistance-“the management are moving too fast”.  Followed by a period of acceptance and normalization (“of course this is the way to do things”).  And then protests that the management is not moving quickly enough to promote change.
Change will be continuous and often uncomfortable for leaders, but people do adapt and find new ways of working.

Social media and citizen journalists are bringing big changes to Journalism

Much of this change is positive and it does not obviate the need for good journalists sticking to journalistic principles. But the practice of journalism is different, in four ways:

1. Eyewitness views and pictures can be better than the official filmed version as it is truly on the spot live reporting. The moment when broadcasters really understood this was the Kings Cross bomb- the grainy live reports on video enabled mobile phones from underground beat anything that the BBC or ITV could put on air.This led the news that day.
   Reporting on Iran relies on video clips uploaded by people inside Iran- a huge volume of them, at one time 8 video clips a minute.
2. Opinion
   The idea of collecting opinion and news from the general public is not new – there have been radio phone-ins for years. But social media makes the scale and speed of this something different.  We need to be responsive to this with comment boards and blogs.
3. Breaking news can come from the web and predictably will do so during the election campaign.   Social networks are the new cities or neighbourhood bars.  It’s a place where we find news and where it breaks – e.g., the plane ditching in the Hudson, the use of White Phosphorous in Iraq broken by a journalist using his contacts and his blog.
4. Networked journalism: On any give subject the public will know more than the journalist. This is especially true of some areas such as technology where a journalist who fails to consult the experts in the public and business arena can get caught out. So stories will increasingly be put into the public domain for feedback before being broadcast. For example The BBC having created a consultation mechanism called City Diaries for unvarnished and expert feedback on finance and banking
   See Charlie Beckets book “Supermedia”
   This has brought changes in structure and staffing.  Now the BBC newsroom has a desk of 12 that monitors social media 24/7 and looks at material sent in by the public – they verify it or caveat it.

Does his mean we no longer need journalists?

Not a bit of it. This huge flow of information just needs a different journalism.
Never confuse information with good journalism. There is both demand and a need for verification and fact checking that is at the heart of journalism however the journalist collects his or her information.  Standards of journalism should be driven up by the expertise of the public.

Richard’s four soundbites

1. We (i.e. the broadcasters) don’t own the news anymore
   The public can and do set the agenda- an example is the UGC pictures during the G20 protests. This led the news.
2. Transparency is the new objectivity
   Balance used to be the watchword of the regulated UK news environment
   Now that is not enough. Trust is built through transparency.
   This can be liberating and it means “showing your workings”- as you did when doing maths at school- and admitting mistakes. The positive benefit of this is that it reduces the power of the spin doctor – people can smell their influence and won’t tolerate it.
3. Information is not journalism
   Volumes of information and opinion from people who may have an axe to grind create a profound need for verification, context and, accuracy – and a consistent demand for a framework you can trust.
   BBC now providing real value in the way it uses government data – for instance providing maps of government data such as crash maps or the recession tracker looking at regional differences.
4. If you find yourself in competition with the internet get out
   How journalism related to the internet is of course one of the most vital topics to the future business models of news media.
   The internet enables and supports journalism through openness.
   You wouldn’t bet against Rupert Murdoch but blocking people from viewing content through paywalls is unlikely to succeed. The cat is out of the bag.

See Alan Rusbridger’s Cudlipp Lecture on whether there is such a thing as journalism

Discussion points

Will British politicians follow Obama’s lead in using social media?
Obama was a special case in some respects. He was coming from behind with fewer resources and took more risks. He understood that he had to let go of control. Most British politicians don’t “get this” and see social media as a channel for putting out their message and then fail to respond authentically when they get comment and feedback. It makes them look stupid and they are better off not doing it
That said this next election will bring the biggest influx of new MPs since 1945 and it may well bring a change of mood and a generation of politicians who do understand that social media is about transparency and interaction not messaging.

The future of the world service- is it challenged buy new channels from the like of the French and Chinese sponsored channels (and Al–Jazeera)?
There is a difference- these are mouthpieces of state and project a national perspective. By contrast, the BBC is independent and guards its independence, which can bring it into conflict with the government of the day.
The BBC will maintain its leadership position as a global news provider if it sticks to this and maintains that all vital trust.