About the BBC Feed

Smartphone journalism training – those myths debunked

Mark Wray — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 11:10:16 +0000

Licence fee money has been ‘blown’, cash has been ‘splashed’ and critics have ‘blasted’ the expense.

What has caused this media maelstrom? This wailing and gnashing of teeth?

It’s the fact the BBC has invested in bringing its reporting into the digital age by equipping many of its journalists with iPhones and has trained them how to use these multi-faceted devices to their fullest extent... all for the benefit of our audience, the Licence Fee payer.

But surely you ask couldn’t any child use a smartphone without the need for training? Do BBC staff need hand-holding for the most basic of tasks?

Of course not. And it’s disappointing some have leapt too easily to that conclusion, even when provided with the facts of what's really happening.

The truth is we’re in the midst of a revolution in newsgathering. One in which a single reporter, almost anywhere in the world, can become (with the right training) a mobile outside broadcast unit. Bringing audiences, sometimes in real-time, coverage of some of the most important stories of our times at a fraction of the cost of old technology.

No-one needs training on how to use a phone, text, or even to use many apps that are designed to be intuitive and which most of us now deploy without a moment’s thought.

But to know how to capture audio, video and stills of sufficient quality to share with millions; to edit that material; to learn how to deploy specially designed apps to allow this rich content to be filed from remote locations; to discover how to integrate locally-gathered material with other elements stored on computers thousands of miles away does take training.

Of course it’s fair and appropriate to ask whether the sizeable sums quoted are providing value for money? Sadly that’s the part of the story some of our critics don’t want to hear. This form of newsgathering is arguably the cheapest most efficient means currently available.

It’s something the world’s media organisations are all investing in, supported by training. It’s something that even some of the newspapers which criticised us are doing in order to gather and produce content for their own digital platforms.

At a recent international conference Glen Mulcahy from Irish broadcaster, RTE, compared the cost of a traditional ENG broadcast kit with the cost of a smartphone and all the field-reporting accoutrements required to go-live in broadcast quality: about £50,000 vs £1,200. And that’s not taking into account any costs for OB trucks and technical operators to enable live coverage in remote locations.

So, rather than be shame-faced about the investment we’ve made in this training, it’s something we’re hugely proud of. It’s called progress.

Mark Wray is Head of BBC College of Journalism

Read Mark’s College of Journalism blog: The smartphone revolution and why training matters

BBC College of Journalism's third Social Media Summit

Matthew Eltringham — Tue, 13 May 2014 09:41:10 +0000

Logo updated for #smsldn London Social Media Summit on 16 May 2014.

On Friday 16 May 2014, the BBC College of Journalism will be hosting the third Social Media Summit on BBC Broadcasting House in London. The full agenda of the event is available on Eventbrite. College website editor Matthew Eltringham introduces the days events, including a session with Director of News and Current Affairs, James Harding.

It’s becoming a springtime ritual - along with the shorts, the Pimms and the cricket, comes our Social Media Summit.

This one - #smsldn - will be the third we’ve held and the second with our friends and partners at the New York Times, with the support of the Knight Foundation - after #smsnyc last year and #bbsms in 2011.

The purpose of the event remains the same: to provide practical, relevant and useful conversation about how social media is affecting the journalism that we do day in, day out. But the focus of that conversation has changed dramatically since 2011.

#SMS has therefore become a default yardstick that allows us to measure the incremental, daily changes in newsrooms around the world caused by the pervasively disruptive influences of the global families of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their many relatives.

Read the rest of this post on the BBC College of Journalism Blog.

Re-designed BBC College of Journalism website launches

Jonathan Baker — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:30:05 +0000

No other media organisation has anything quite like the BBC College of Journalism website. Online training aids are common, of course. But for its sheer ambition, scope and authority, the College site is in a league of its own.

That's why newsrooms and journalism schools around the world pay a subscription for access to the site. And why it's also widely used by the media and by media schools throughout the UK, where access is free.

The attraction for these external users is that the materials they are able to tap into are exactly those that the BBC provides for its own staff. Everyone knows the worldwide power of the BBC brand in general, and the reputation of BBC news in particular.

So a site that embodies those key BBC values of accuracy, trust, impartiality and quality, and explains how they can be practically applied on a day-to-day basis, is a highly attractive proposition.

In essence though, the site was conceived and created by BBC journalists, for BBC journalists. And that has remained the cornerstone of our approach in the re-design, which is now coming to fruition after many months of work.

The core BBC values and the core craft skills - be they in television, radio or online - are still at the heart of what the College website offers. Much of this material's strength is that it is presented by the BBC's best, and best-known, practitioners - people such as Huw Edwards, Allan Little and David Shukman.

But the ambition of the original site, launched six years ago now, went far beyond that - and with our new identity we are carrying those aspirations further still. As well as giving invaluable help with the fundamentals of broadcast journalism, the site also aims to be highly relevant and topical - through a whole range of aids to BBC journalists covering current stories, and through blogs and the posting of extracts from live College events.

This is an area in which we hope to make a step change with the new site. The new design is vibrant and welcoming, and we want the content to reflect that by being dynamic and in touch with the big stories and issues of the day.

The new site (pictured above) also supports our effort to create stronger links between online learning and the other training offered by the College of Journalism. On its own, the site is a tremendous resource for BBC staff, in News and in many other areas of programme-making. Increasingly, we are also using it as a place for people about to attend face-to-face training - which still constitutes the bulk of what we do - to prepare for that training, and then follow up afterwards.

And for the first time we have a direct link from the site to Academy Coursefinder, the system by which BBC staff actually register for face-to-face training courses.

There are other aspects to this more integrated approach. The College of Journalism website broke new ground when it was created. The College of Production now has a site as well, and so does the Academy itself.

From the point of view of the user, from inside the BBC or outside, distinctions between Colleges mean little. They just want to get to the content that is of most use and interest to them as quickly as they can. So it's important that the various Academy sites work together in a seamless way, in order to make sure that people find what they want, and quickly. The crisp and clear layout of the new College of Journalism site, with simpler navigation and intuitive systems, should contribute a great deal to that effort.

Our hope is that the new website will be just as popular and useful outside the BBC as its predecessor, and will attract plenty more subscriptions. But more importantly, it has a big role to play in spreading our unrivalled experience and expertise across the whole of the BBC's journalism - not just in news programmes but across the whole range of the BBC's programme-making.

To return to where we started, this is a unique resource; it would be a terrible waste if the largest possible number of people within the BBC didn't take full advantage of it. The new-look site is designed to encourage them to do just that.

Jonathan Baker is the Head of the BBC College of Journalism

Read an interview with the College of Journalism website editor on the BBC Academy website.

The BBC Academy and College of Journalism

Anne Morrison — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:36:19 +0000

In becoming Director of the BBC Academy, as well as bringing together all of training and development at the BBC for the first time (my first and most obvious task), I've been determined to use the creation of the Academy to raise our ambitions for training within the BBC and to be much more explicit and proactive about our role in training the industry. The announcements we have made this week indicate a willingness to look outwards and understand the skills gaps in the industry.

It is part of our public service mission to work with partners to foster a skilled, modern workforce, able to circulate through the industry. We are doing this against a background of many companies and broadcasters, under commercial pressure, cutting back on investment in training. What we can do, within the limits of fair trading, is to share some of the fantastic resources we have for the benefit of the wider industry by working in partnership with other broadcasters and institutions on areas of shared interest.

As change in the media world accelerates, training becomes ever more important. The Academy brings together centres of expertise in Journalism, Production, Leadership and Technology training to create a world-class development resource for our staff. However, with an increasingly mobile workforce it is in our interest that we should help support training outside the organisation as well as inside. In other words, our new initiatives are not inspired by charity but by enlightened self-interest!

The BBC College of Journalism website is a tremendous learning resource, with masterclasses from leading BBC journalists such as Evan Davis, John Humphrys, Robert Peston, Jenni Murray and Jeremy Vine, as well as craft skills, ethics and values, videos, audio files and interactive modules. We have now made it freely available to everyone in the UK and in the New Year it will be available by subscription abroad.

We are joining forces with Channel 4 to create the Diversity 2010 programme, which aims to increase understanding of diversity in the workplace and embed it in our future leadership. We are also collaborating with ITV to improve employability in the media industry for people with disabilities. By sharing best practice and enabling two-way placements, ITV will further develop its Enabling Talent disability programme and the BBC its award-winning Extend scheme.

With other partners we've developed a very successful model for Multiplatform Foundation training which we're rolling out within the BBC currently. Now, the Academy will share that model with other broadcasters and organisations including PACT, BECTU, and the Indie Training Fund. Finally, we will be delivering ideas development and pitching workshops for independent and in-house producers outside London to share best practice and help increase the number of commissions from the UK nations. The workshop was piloted successfully in Belfast and will be held in Cardiff and Glasgow in the New Year.

These new initiatives add to existing BBC schemes to train freelance talent and represent just the beginning - and we are confident there'll be many more initiatives to come as the Academy fulfils its potential. It's a very exciting journey we've all embarked on and the ambitions we have won't be achieved overnight, but I passionately believe in the importance of investing in the future talent of our industry.