Twitter and BBC blogs continued...

In reply to yesterday's short offering, Tom Van Aardt (tomVS on Twitter - he's the Communities Editor at the BBC) has written a couple of posts on Twitter and the BBC's blogs.

The first is about Twitter and the potential for miscommunication.

"...there is no context on a microblogging platform. That’s sometimes the problem. Online all the other subtle forms of communication is lost - voice, body language, etc - and you’re only left with the words. In general a blog post (like this one) provides little information compared to a conversation, but it still provides vastly more information than a single sentence."

The second is a short justification of why he prefers Robert Peston's blog to 'official BBC News stories':

"All in all, it’s a more complete source of information than an unnamed BBC story. The fact that it’s a blog from the BBC gives me even more faith - to me it’s better than a usual BBC news story."

Here, in the latter quote, I think we see evidence of something of a culture change in the BBC's approach to the authority of information online.

In the distant past, the culture of attempting to remain impartial and objective meant the BBC tended to take the voice out of journalism. Most obviously this was seen in the reading of the BBC news which was always undertaken in a very neutral tone.

As Tom alludes to here, the philosophy of taking the individual out of news is also evident in the BBC website where most 'standard' news articles are not attributed to individual journalists.

The thinking is that the information carries authority because the biases, prejudices and opinions of the journalist have in theory been put aside to present the facts in a balanced and fair manner.

The thinking behind blogging runs counter to this idea and says that actually a piece of information can have more authority if we know who is behind it.

Hence, because Tom knows Robert Peston is writing his blog - an expert on the financial crisis and clearly in the know - the information carries more weight than if it was written by any other journalist at the BBC. The individual does make a difference. (Of course, the BBC brand still has a role to play here too.)

There may well be room for both approaches to news at the BBC and other organisations, and perhaps the key challenge is getting the balance right.

Indeed, I don't think the latter approach is entirely new. In both TV and radio, it's fairly plain the BBC has long recognised the importance of presenters and reporters developing what amounts to a personal rapport with the audience.

But I would suggest that the efforts to develop a more personal BBC presence online is also due to the influence of blogging on the thinking of those who work at the BBC.

The BBC Brand and BBC Blogging

Last Friday, I met one of the senior editors at the BBC. I only had a brief five-minute chat with him but he highlighted what I think is one of the key issues with BBC blogging. BBC blogs, he said, must be something that last and not simply the random thoughts of a correspondent writing the first thing that comes into his or her head. Crucially they must “protect the brand”.

Although the ‘brand’ may have taken a bit of a hammering in recent months, the BBC’s determination to provide accurate, impartial and honest news remains at the heart of the organisation’s thinking. This raises interesting questions for BBC blogs. After all, one of the common sense positions on the nature of blogging is that blogs are best when they provide off-the-cuff, opinionated, almost gossipy information.

I’m not sure this is necessarily true and blogging has evolved to incorporate a variety of different styles. Generalising about blogs is dangerous. But I think BBC blogging is different to a lot of blogging that is taking place. Just try comparing Nick Robinson’s blog with that of Iain Dale for example. So why is the BBC blogging? Does the BBC merely feel it ought to because 4 million other people are doing it? And how does the need to protect the brand affect the nature of BBC blogs.

In the case of war and terrorism, is it worth getting a BBC war correspondent to spend time writing a blog, when military blogs (milblogs), unconcerned with the need to live up to any sort of ‘brand’ may provide better insights? (They also may not – British military blogging seems scarce compared with the richness of American blogs on offer). In times of war, the BBC’s commitment as a public service broadcaster would complicate any blogging activity any further.

As far as I’m aware there aren’t any BBC defence correspondents blogging on a regular basis at the moment. (Stuart Hughes, currently defence and security producer, used to have one but has since stopped blogging). Is this the sort of thing people want to see? Would it improve the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism?