"I don't want my news to be interactive"

I'm writing about BBC Newsnight and came across an interesting comment on Newsnight's programme blog from 2007.

It was written in response to a post by the Newsnight web team asking blog readers what they wanted to see covered on the TV programme - part of an "experiment in audience participation" by former editor Peter Barron.

It demonstrates that soliciting involvement in the editorial process is not everybody's cup of tea:

"Please stop doing this. You are the news experts; we expect you to make decisions on what is important based on your wider knowledge of current affairs.

"I don't want my news to be interactive; I want it to be accurate, considered, balanced, and give me an indication of the important issues affecting the world today. I don't want news that simply panders to the agenda of those who shout loudest. I don't have time to keep up with everything and make decisions about what is and is not important; that's your job!

"Your current approach smacks of lack of confidence in your own knowledge and judgement. That will taint my opinion of your ability to deliver the quality of news reporting that I expect."

Links for today: BBC Newsnight, Twitter and a few others

BBC Newsnight, Twitter and journalism

I couldn't possibly comment on Newsnight's interview with Twitter CEO, Evan Williams, but here's some links for those of you who are interested...

• 'Read it and Weep': Guardian transcript of the interview
  
• Shane Richmond: 'Newsnight is not a form of journalism'
• Twitter responses to the interview: loved it, embarrassing, do Newsnight understand?

Blogging in Afghanistan

• There's a lot of news from Afghanistan at the moment. Most of it far less positive than this blog post about an online journalism and blogging workshop in Helmand. Twenty-eight attendees had to share two computers but they were determined to learn new ways to make their voices heard.
  

Money makes the media world go round?

• Rupert Murdoch to charge for news content online. The proprietor of the Sun noted that "quality of journalism is not cheap".
  
• Some have faith in the link economy.
  
• Others are not at all convinced by the marketplace of the 'free'.
  

Paxman on UGC

Via Reportr.net, via cybersoc



Worth pointing out that this video was added in October, so must have been a while ago. I wonder if his views have changed since then?

Afghanistan on BBC's Newsnight

I've just watched the Afghanistan piece that Newsnight have done on BBC 2. They decided to go with the angle that the US have agreed to help out reinforced British troops in Helmand province.

So the Newsnight team opted to have US General Wesley Clark (who spoke a lot of sense by the way) and former UK Secretary of Defence, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, discussing US and British military roles after a package by Diplomatic Editor, Mark Urban.

The problem was that this all became a bit of an Anglo-American love-in with Rifkind and Clark interrupting one another to pay tribute to US and British military strategy, forces, equipment etc respectively.

Presenter Kirsty Wark floundered around trying to bring up some sort of disagreement between the pair, pressing the line that US troops have better technological support compared to most British infantry units. Interesting? (To a specialist perhaps). But how relevant is this to the real news story here?

As I was watching, I felt that this discussion had become a poor sideshow to the two main issues: namely NATO's organisation and military structure in Afghanistan and the role of NATO's member states in implementing military strategy.

I wanted to hear from the Danes or the Germans or the Italians. I wanted to hear from a senior member of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Basically, I wanted to hear from somebody, (almost) anybody representing a different point of view on the story, not two people batting for the same team.

But then you can't always get what you want...not least when it comes to Afghanistan, as the UK and US governments are finding out.