THE new coalition government is not too busy slashing public services and cutting budgets to interfere in the commercial viability of the media, despite numerous warnings of how it is doomed to failure.
The last Labour Government got in a dreadful mess trying to save local independent television news from the bean-counters who run ITV.
In the old days ITV was run by regionally based stations who were obliged by conditions in their licences to provide local news programmes.
Since the internet stole what little remains in advertisement revenues in the lingering recession, independent television has gone down the route of economies of scale so there is in effect just the one national station. When it wants to squeeze costs, then local news in which it has no interest is an easy target.
Labour’s answer was the concisely-named Independently Funded News Consortia. These were conglomerate of current media companies who thought they could provide a service for local TV.
Trinity Mirror's bid to run regional TV news in the North-East and Borders region was joined by The CN Group, publishers of the News and Star, Carlisle, and the North West Evening Mail, in Barrow, joining the Press Association and production company Ten Alps.
It geared up to do battle for the right to broadcast regional TV news on Channel 3 with a rival team featuring Newsquest, publishers of the Northern Echo, and Johnston Press, which owns the Sunderland Echo and Hartlepool Mail. Johnston Press and Newsquest have joined forces with ITN, Metro Radio and the University of Sunderland to form a consortium to provide broadcast news in Border and Tyne Tees.
The groups were seeking to win the public funding which was to have been made available for one of three broadcasting pilot projects to replace ITV news in Wales, Scotland and this English region. If the pilots had been successful, Independently Funded News Consortia could be rolled out across the UK.
Luckily for all concerned this idea bit the dust in the lead up to the election.
Now the new Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is believed to be pressing ahead with plans for local TV stations despite a critical report on the idea.
A panel set up under investment banker Nicholas Shott to look into the idea has cast further doubt on its viability in an interim report published today. It says advertising alone will not be enough to pay for the network of new stations and that it may need a big corporate sponsor to get off the ground.
He cites Barclays Bank’s sponsorship of the London cycle scheme to the tune of £25 million as a role model. But cycles do not have sensitive issues like freedom of expression.
Would the likes of Barclays want to sponsor a news outlet that may ridicule the record of its new chief executive, or attack the closure of local bank branches for example?
Mr Hunt told the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four this morning that the absense of a city TV sector in the UK represented a "market failure." Well the virtual closure of Manchester Evening News’s M Channel, despite that city’s vibrant economy is not a good omen.
Mr Hunt thinks the answer is to life restrictions on cross-media ownership to allow newspaper publishers who already own big city titles to also control TV stations. But regional publisher Trinity Mirror, which owns the major newspaper titles in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Cardiff, has previously expressed strong reservations about the business model.
In a letter to Mr Hunt today, Mr Shott said the stations were more likely to succeed in urban areas, despite the Manchester experience, although he did accept that even there "the economics of a TV business funded mainly by advertising will still be challenging" and "additional revenue sources" would have to be explored, hence the sponsorship idea.
He added that stations could be hosted by existing channels and that discussions had started with "senior management" at the BBC which were showing "early promise". Well we all know what BBC managers know about viability and value for money.
Mr Hunt will argue the case for more local television in a speech to the Royal Television Society at the Barbican Centre in London.
He will say that an expansion of superfast broadband and the removal of cross-media rules preventing companies controlling newspapers, television and radio stations will all help make the plan more likely to succeed.
Still the old media and their supporters flail around in the post-Internet world. If broadband is to continue to improve then the obvious source of local news is web-based local providers.
These can be existing local media companies, like Newsquest or Trinity Mirror, or new independent entrepreneurs like the excellent Lakes TV. Keep television out of it.
And better still, keep the Government out of it. They have other more important issues to focus on than worrying about who provides your local TV news.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Plummeting sales explained
IF you want to know why newspaper and magazine sales are plummeting, as shown by the release of Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures this week, you could do worse than go and talk to your local newsagent.
One of the victims of the bean-counter regime that bedevils publishing companies these days is the department responsible for maximising copy sales (as opposed to advertisement sales).
They have been stripped of all power and influence in most companies, and in one memorable period during the demise of Westminster Press, closed down all together.
The accountants’ thinking was that it was a waste of time selling more papers, as that only cost more money than it raised in revenue. The ideal scenario seemed to be to sell as few copies as possible, then you would keep delivery, merchandising and newsprint costs down to a minimum.
The fact that advertisement sales, not to mention the confidence and morale of the whole industry, depended on a healthy vibrant copy sale seemed to escape them.
To be fair, most companies drew back from the most draconian of cuts to circulation departments, but the muddles and self-destructive thinking continue, as illustrated by two examples from my newsagent today.
I needed to buy a copy of the weekly Lancaster Guardian, part of the national group, Johnston Press, which was this week crowing about growing its profits (if not its revenues) last year, for the first time for years.
The Guardian says it comes out on Thursday, but on Thursday morning I was told it doesn’t reach the newsagent until some fluctuating time on Thursday afternoon.
Friday I was away from its circulation area, so I went first thing Saturday morning only to be told it had sold out. I remonstrated with the newsagent, to be told that the Guardian had just changed its returns policy so the agent is only allowed to claim for 12% of its returns.
Because newspapers have such a short shelf life and such unpredictable sales, outlet by outlet, most publishers allow agents full sale or return, otherwise the agents have no incentive to stock enough copies to satisfy high demand weeks. Some offer 50% returns to encourage sensible ordering policies by the agents. But 12% is unusually low.
The previous week this agent had been left with ten unsold copies, only one of which she was able to claim back the wholesale price for. So she cut the order by five, and sold out within 24 hours. Because it was the Bank Holiday it was going to be next Tuesday before she could order more. I told her to forget it.
The paper used to sell 40 copies a week at this outlet on the fringes of its circulation area. Now it sells 28, a 30 percent drop. ABC shows the Guardian selling an average of 14,517 copies a week from January to June 2010, a decline of 2.9% on the same period last year. Now you know why.
It’s got nothing to do with the quality of material, even though it has recently lost its editor and news editor without apparently replacing them. It’s the curse of the bean-counters.
At the same newsagent’s shop there was a magnificent display of Cumbria Life, a monthly magazine produced by Carlisle-based Cumbria Media Group. This is one of those quaint family-owned independent firms, usually much more in tune with sustainable products and less obsessed with lining shareholders’ pockets than the big groups. But even they are not immune.
The September issue of Cumbria Life has a splendidly written feature on the village in which the newsagent is based. But had the publisher seen the opportunity? Not a bit of it. They hadn’t even told the newsagent.
He spotted it by accident, mounted the display, and consequently expects to sell ten times as many copies as usual, and sure enough the whole village has been talking about the article and therefore the magazine.
What a brilliant sampling opportunity. But if the newsagent hadn’t been on the ball that opportunity would have been lost. It seems even Cumbrian Media Group has forgotten the basic skills of selling and marketing its products. No doubt the bean-counters would be proud of them.
One of the victims of the bean-counter regime that bedevils publishing companies these days is the department responsible for maximising copy sales (as opposed to advertisement sales).
They have been stripped of all power and influence in most companies, and in one memorable period during the demise of Westminster Press, closed down all together.
The accountants’ thinking was that it was a waste of time selling more papers, as that only cost more money than it raised in revenue. The ideal scenario seemed to be to sell as few copies as possible, then you would keep delivery, merchandising and newsprint costs down to a minimum.
The fact that advertisement sales, not to mention the confidence and morale of the whole industry, depended on a healthy vibrant copy sale seemed to escape them.
To be fair, most companies drew back from the most draconian of cuts to circulation departments, but the muddles and self-destructive thinking continue, as illustrated by two examples from my newsagent today.
I needed to buy a copy of the weekly Lancaster Guardian, part of the national group, Johnston Press, which was this week crowing about growing its profits (if not its revenues) last year, for the first time for years.
The Guardian says it comes out on Thursday, but on Thursday morning I was told it doesn’t reach the newsagent until some fluctuating time on Thursday afternoon.
Friday I was away from its circulation area, so I went first thing Saturday morning only to be told it had sold out. I remonstrated with the newsagent, to be told that the Guardian had just changed its returns policy so the agent is only allowed to claim for 12% of its returns.
Because newspapers have such a short shelf life and such unpredictable sales, outlet by outlet, most publishers allow agents full sale or return, otherwise the agents have no incentive to stock enough copies to satisfy high demand weeks. Some offer 50% returns to encourage sensible ordering policies by the agents. But 12% is unusually low.
The previous week this agent had been left with ten unsold copies, only one of which she was able to claim back the wholesale price for. So she cut the order by five, and sold out within 24 hours. Because it was the Bank Holiday it was going to be next Tuesday before she could order more. I told her to forget it.
The paper used to sell 40 copies a week at this outlet on the fringes of its circulation area. Now it sells 28, a 30 percent drop. ABC shows the Guardian selling an average of 14,517 copies a week from January to June 2010, a decline of 2.9% on the same period last year. Now you know why.
It’s got nothing to do with the quality of material, even though it has recently lost its editor and news editor without apparently replacing them. It’s the curse of the bean-counters.
At the same newsagent’s shop there was a magnificent display of Cumbria Life, a monthly magazine produced by Carlisle-based Cumbria Media Group. This is one of those quaint family-owned independent firms, usually much more in tune with sustainable products and less obsessed with lining shareholders’ pockets than the big groups. But even they are not immune.
The September issue of Cumbria Life has a splendidly written feature on the village in which the newsagent is based. But had the publisher seen the opportunity? Not a bit of it. They hadn’t even told the newsagent.
He spotted it by accident, mounted the display, and consequently expects to sell ten times as many copies as usual, and sure enough the whole village has been talking about the article and therefore the magazine.
What a brilliant sampling opportunity. But if the newsagent hadn’t been on the ball that opportunity would have been lost. It seems even Cumbrian Media Group has forgotten the basic skills of selling and marketing its products. No doubt the bean-counters would be proud of them.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Punch drunk media turn reckless
MY FREELANCE business has been at the centre this week of a fascinating episode highlighting the way the media works these days.
I received a tip off that a run-of-the-mill assault case at South Lakeland Magistrates court might be of interest as the victim of the alleged attack was Coronation Street actor Simon Gregson, who plays bad boy Steve McDonald in the long-running TV soap.
So I rang one of the tabloids obsessed with this type of celebrity case and they immediately ordered it as an exclusive, which saved me the bother of ringing round the other eight or nine news desks and guaranteed a pretty healthy payment, or so I thought.
Of course this all depended on the tip being true, and on the case going ahead. Amazingly it was and it did.
The only other journalist in court was from the locally-based Westmorland Gazette.
The defendant was a Windermere trainee dry-stone waller, Reece Barnes, aged 18, who admitted the battery of Gregson (also known as Gregory, which made for confusing evidence, as his name changed every few minutes).
It was something of nothing really. The two of them had been drinking separately in Bowness, ended up in the Wheelhouse, argued over seating arrangements, had a quick bundle, during which Barnes got in the first punch.
Gregson ended up with a badly bruised nose, scratches and dignity hurt enough to shout abusively at Barnes as he was evicted and banned from the club for six months.
The whole case was over in little over an hour and the bench gave Barnes a conditional discharge, a severe warning about his future conduct and ordered hime to pay £100 compensation to Gregson, as if he needed it.
Because of the guilty plea Gregson didn’t have to attend. Outside court Barnes’s photograph was taken. He said he didn’t even know that the man he struck was a Corrie actor.
Within another hour the tabloid had the copy. This was Tuesday. For reasons of their own they decided to hold it for 24 hours for use on Thursday.
However on Wednesday morning I got a call from the tabloid’s representative saying that the story was all over the web, had appeared in a rival tabloid, courtesy of a news agency called Northern News, based in Newcastle and with an office in Carlisle.
At first I was bemused as they certainly weren’t represented in court. The inference was that I had ratted on the exclusive and flogged the story, ruining the exclusive deal. This I denied as it wasn’t true. But how had the story got out?
The answer was simple. The Westmorland Gazette has a “web first” policy which means they put everything up on-line. The agency must just have cut and pasted it then put it out on the wire.
The tabloid I had the agreement with never used the story, which was even more infuriating as my own host web-site MSN had it as its most used story in its Editor’s Pick on its home page all day.
This raises several interesting issues: Why does The Westmorland Gazette give away material on the web that can be plundered by the world’s media and used by all and sundry before the newspaper that actually raises its revenues uses it?
How can freelance agencies plunder and sell as their own court cases they didn’t even attend? What would be their defence if The Westmorland Gazette got it wrong (if Mr Gregory was not Mr Gregson after all, for instance?) and someone decided to sue?
The only winners are the internet search engines and site hosts who ruthlessly exploit the absence of any copyright protection on news. It seems that Mr Barnes is not the only one to be flailing in the dark. The punch drunk media routinely behave recklessly these days, too.
I received a tip off that a run-of-the-mill assault case at South Lakeland Magistrates court might be of interest as the victim of the alleged attack was Coronation Street actor Simon Gregson, who plays bad boy Steve McDonald in the long-running TV soap.
So I rang one of the tabloids obsessed with this type of celebrity case and they immediately ordered it as an exclusive, which saved me the bother of ringing round the other eight or nine news desks and guaranteed a pretty healthy payment, or so I thought.
Of course this all depended on the tip being true, and on the case going ahead. Amazingly it was and it did.
The only other journalist in court was from the locally-based Westmorland Gazette.
The defendant was a Windermere trainee dry-stone waller, Reece Barnes, aged 18, who admitted the battery of Gregson (also known as Gregory, which made for confusing evidence, as his name changed every few minutes).
It was something of nothing really. The two of them had been drinking separately in Bowness, ended up in the Wheelhouse, argued over seating arrangements, had a quick bundle, during which Barnes got in the first punch.
Gregson ended up with a badly bruised nose, scratches and dignity hurt enough to shout abusively at Barnes as he was evicted and banned from the club for six months.
The whole case was over in little over an hour and the bench gave Barnes a conditional discharge, a severe warning about his future conduct and ordered hime to pay £100 compensation to Gregson, as if he needed it.
Because of the guilty plea Gregson didn’t have to attend. Outside court Barnes’s photograph was taken. He said he didn’t even know that the man he struck was a Corrie actor.
Within another hour the tabloid had the copy. This was Tuesday. For reasons of their own they decided to hold it for 24 hours for use on Thursday.
However on Wednesday morning I got a call from the tabloid’s representative saying that the story was all over the web, had appeared in a rival tabloid, courtesy of a news agency called Northern News, based in Newcastle and with an office in Carlisle.
At first I was bemused as they certainly weren’t represented in court. The inference was that I had ratted on the exclusive and flogged the story, ruining the exclusive deal. This I denied as it wasn’t true. But how had the story got out?
The answer was simple. The Westmorland Gazette has a “web first” policy which means they put everything up on-line. The agency must just have cut and pasted it then put it out on the wire.
The tabloid I had the agreement with never used the story, which was even more infuriating as my own host web-site MSN had it as its most used story in its Editor’s Pick on its home page all day.
This raises several interesting issues: Why does The Westmorland Gazette give away material on the web that can be plundered by the world’s media and used by all and sundry before the newspaper that actually raises its revenues uses it?
How can freelance agencies plunder and sell as their own court cases they didn’t even attend? What would be their defence if The Westmorland Gazette got it wrong (if Mr Gregory was not Mr Gregson after all, for instance?) and someone decided to sue?
The only winners are the internet search engines and site hosts who ruthlessly exploit the absence of any copyright protection on news. It seems that Mr Barnes is not the only one to be flailing in the dark. The punch drunk media routinely behave recklessly these days, too.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Moving on from toxic words
THERE’s nothing as entertaining as politicians wriggling over interpretation of their words.
Many years ago there was this Newcastle City councillor who could barely string two words together. Think John Prescott, then quadruple the inarticulacy.
For years the Evening Chronicle had to tidy up his words for publication, until he actually had the cheek to complain about being misquoted.
So the paper sent their ex-Hansard, 200-words-a-minute shorthand expert to report to the letter what the councillor actually said, complete with non-sequiturs, appalling grammar and grunts. His speech was quoted in full, with explanation, and he never complained again.
I was reminded of this episode as two of Cumbria’s Coalition MPs have been caught in the glare of national publicity this week for tripping over their own words. Cries of “taken out of context” and “misinterpretation” were uttered. There’s nothing like blaming the messenger.
First out of the blocks was Rory Stewart. The newly elected Tory member for Penrith and the Borders, was accused of calling his constituents primitive, as evidenced by their proneness to wearing string to hold up their trousers.
This was seized upon by the Scottish Sun and then more sensationally by the Sunday Mirror.
Mr Stewart, a devotee of Lawrence of Arabia, and who once walked from Iraq to Bangladesh to get to know the Arab and Indian sub-continent peoples, knows a thing or two about primitive living.
He has also walked his new constituency to get a feel for the people of the Eden valley and surrounding hills. He was trying to say that rural poverty and remoteness meant that some aspects of lifestyle in the Pennines would seem primitive to urban dwellers, not that the rural folk are per se primitive.
Mr Stewart, who is now issuing apologies and threatening to take the Sunday Mirror to the Press Complaints Commission, should calm down.
When he has been around a little longer he will realise that rural folk love to fool city slickers into thinking they are poor by wearing string round their mid-riff. Some of the wealthiest farmers I know like to look like Worzel Gummidge on a bad hair day.
String may be the poor man’s friend, but don’t equate using string for sartorial support with poverty.
At least Mr Stewart had the intervention of newspaper journalists to blame for his apparent gaffe. His Liberal Democrat neighbour and colleague Tim Farron was live on Radio 4’s World at One when he referred to his party’s coalition partners as toxic Tories.
He explained that he was referring to the Tory brand having some toxic hangover from its last period in power. He actually thinks the coalition is doing well.
In the hurly-burly of debate and 24/7 scrutiny of the media, politicians are bound to say things that are quoted out of context or open to interpretation.
The worst thing they can do is apologise or, worse, try to explain what they meant to say. Being in holes, digging their way out is not the answer. Ignoring the furore and moving on is a better tactic. John Prescott got away with it for years.
Many years ago there was this Newcastle City councillor who could barely string two words together. Think John Prescott, then quadruple the inarticulacy.
For years the Evening Chronicle had to tidy up his words for publication, until he actually had the cheek to complain about being misquoted.
So the paper sent their ex-Hansard, 200-words-a-minute shorthand expert to report to the letter what the councillor actually said, complete with non-sequiturs, appalling grammar and grunts. His speech was quoted in full, with explanation, and he never complained again.
I was reminded of this episode as two of Cumbria’s Coalition MPs have been caught in the glare of national publicity this week for tripping over their own words. Cries of “taken out of context” and “misinterpretation” were uttered. There’s nothing like blaming the messenger.
First out of the blocks was Rory Stewart. The newly elected Tory member for Penrith and the Borders, was accused of calling his constituents primitive, as evidenced by their proneness to wearing string to hold up their trousers.
This was seized upon by the Scottish Sun and then more sensationally by the Sunday Mirror.
Mr Stewart, a devotee of Lawrence of Arabia, and who once walked from Iraq to Bangladesh to get to know the Arab and Indian sub-continent peoples, knows a thing or two about primitive living.
He has also walked his new constituency to get a feel for the people of the Eden valley and surrounding hills. He was trying to say that rural poverty and remoteness meant that some aspects of lifestyle in the Pennines would seem primitive to urban dwellers, not that the rural folk are per se primitive.
Mr Stewart, who is now issuing apologies and threatening to take the Sunday Mirror to the Press Complaints Commission, should calm down.
When he has been around a little longer he will realise that rural folk love to fool city slickers into thinking they are poor by wearing string round their mid-riff. Some of the wealthiest farmers I know like to look like Worzel Gummidge on a bad hair day.
String may be the poor man’s friend, but don’t equate using string for sartorial support with poverty.
At least Mr Stewart had the intervention of newspaper journalists to blame for his apparent gaffe. His Liberal Democrat neighbour and colleague Tim Farron was live on Radio 4’s World at One when he referred to his party’s coalition partners as toxic Tories.
He explained that he was referring to the Tory brand having some toxic hangover from its last period in power. He actually thinks the coalition is doing well.
In the hurly-burly of debate and 24/7 scrutiny of the media, politicians are bound to say things that are quoted out of context or open to interpretation.
The worst thing they can do is apologise or, worse, try to explain what they meant to say. Being in holes, digging their way out is not the answer. Ignoring the furore and moving on is a better tactic. John Prescott got away with it for years.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Community policing
THE media is struggling to explain to its audience, viewers and readers exactly what new austerity Britain really means to services the public has become used to over the good years.
Consequently organisations just seem to want to carry on doing what they have always done.
There is no service that seems immune to this Ostrich-style syndrome. Heads are firmly fixed in the sand.
Take the police. Only this week the dire warnings have been emanating from chief constables about how the threatened cuts will bite.
It is claimed that just one in ten of police officers is on the street at any one time. Actually that is not so surprising when you take into account the 24-hours, seven days a week operation, holidays, sickness, back office functions, paperwork, court appearances, surveillance, victim support and traffic duties etc.
Yet here in Cumbria the Constabulary is vowing to toughen its stance on drink drivers after the number of people caught over the limit rose for the second year running.
They say they know this as every June, the Constabulary runs a summer drink drive campaign from 00:01 on the 1st June to 23:59 on the 30th.
This year, 95 people were arrested after officers conducted 952 breath tests during the campaign, meaning 10 percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
In 2009, 88 arrests were made after 1434 breath tests, meaning six percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
In 2008, 49 arrests were made after 1341 breath tests, meaning less than four percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
But the reason for this apparent increase could also be better value for money policing. During the 2010 campaign, officers conducted fewer stop checks and breath tests than last year, but concentrated their efforts on areas where intelligence suggested people were more likely to be drink-driving. This tactic worked, with a higher percentage of drink drivers being caught.
But this was ignored by the force’s own press release which said: “The figures reveal an alarming reality - a significant number of people in Cumbria continue to think it is acceptable to get behind the wheel while they are over the drink drive limit.
“We work incredibly hard with our partners to get the message around the dangers of drink driving through to people but it seems that to some, the message falls on deaf ears.
“Our positive efforts to target and educate irresponsible drivers will continue but we need the help of the community to make drink driving socially unacceptable. We need individuals to realise that neither police or the communities in Cumbria will tolerate those who needlessly put the lives of innocent road users at risk. I would urge any member of the public with information about a drink-driver to contact the police, or Crimestoppers anonymously, in the same way they would about any other crime.”
If police do indeed face the cuts being mooted by the Home Secretary, they will have to rely ever more on the public to curb drink-drive offenders. This could give a new meaning to community policing.
Consequently organisations just seem to want to carry on doing what they have always done.
There is no service that seems immune to this Ostrich-style syndrome. Heads are firmly fixed in the sand.
Take the police. Only this week the dire warnings have been emanating from chief constables about how the threatened cuts will bite.
It is claimed that just one in ten of police officers is on the street at any one time. Actually that is not so surprising when you take into account the 24-hours, seven days a week operation, holidays, sickness, back office functions, paperwork, court appearances, surveillance, victim support and traffic duties etc.
Yet here in Cumbria the Constabulary is vowing to toughen its stance on drink drivers after the number of people caught over the limit rose for the second year running.
They say they know this as every June, the Constabulary runs a summer drink drive campaign from 00:01 on the 1st June to 23:59 on the 30th.
This year, 95 people were arrested after officers conducted 952 breath tests during the campaign, meaning 10 percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
In 2009, 88 arrests were made after 1434 breath tests, meaning six percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
In 2008, 49 arrests were made after 1341 breath tests, meaning less than four percent of those tested were either over the limit or failed to provide a test.
But the reason for this apparent increase could also be better value for money policing. During the 2010 campaign, officers conducted fewer stop checks and breath tests than last year, but concentrated their efforts on areas where intelligence suggested people were more likely to be drink-driving. This tactic worked, with a higher percentage of drink drivers being caught.
But this was ignored by the force’s own press release which said: “The figures reveal an alarming reality - a significant number of people in Cumbria continue to think it is acceptable to get behind the wheel while they are over the drink drive limit.
“We work incredibly hard with our partners to get the message around the dangers of drink driving through to people but it seems that to some, the message falls on deaf ears.
“Our positive efforts to target and educate irresponsible drivers will continue but we need the help of the community to make drink driving socially unacceptable. We need individuals to realise that neither police or the communities in Cumbria will tolerate those who needlessly put the lives of innocent road users at risk. I would urge any member of the public with information about a drink-driver to contact the police, or Crimestoppers anonymously, in the same way they would about any other crime.”
If police do indeed face the cuts being mooted by the Home Secretary, they will have to rely ever more on the public to curb drink-drive offenders. This could give a new meaning to community policing.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Dumb and dumber BBC
SOMEONE really needs to get a grip on standards at the BBC.
In an increasingly complex and multi-faceted media world there is surely a place for a state-sponsored (but not controlled) broadcaster which is not totally focussed on commercial considerations.
Without the profit imperative, the BBC ought to focus on its Unique Selling Point: Quality. Instead it just gets dumber.
What evidence do I present? I will give just three examples: The World Cup, Springwatch and the News.
The quality of football at the World Cup has been a little disappointing, but that is nothing to the standard of the reporting. We sort of expect ITV and the satellite channels to be riddled with hyperbole.
But the BBC is just as guilty of talking up the latest genius of the beautiful game, who turns out to be incapable of kicking a ball, or catching one if a goalkeeper.
This interpretation relies on being able to understand what the pundits are saying. Over the years I have just about learned to translate the Scottish burr of Alan Hansen. But his English is crystal clear compared to Emmanuel Adebayor, the Togolese professional footballer who plays as a striker for Manchester City in the Premier League.
I am lost in admiration for the fact that he can babble on about a specialist subject like football in what is probably his third language. I couldn’t begin to match this feat.
But that is not the point. The point is that his accent is indecipherable.
In a desperate bid to get away from the World Cup, I switched over this week to watch Springwatch, which ought to be full of fluffy, cute creatures battling with tooth and claw to get a grip on life.
Instead it is full of the ridiculous twitterings and obscene gestures of Kate Humble and Chris Packham. When Packham first took over from Bill Odie he appeared quiet, knowledgeable and very much the junior partner to the veteran presenter Humble.
How the roles have reversed. She has gone from alpha female to whimpering, eye-lash fluttering, and archetype dumb blonde. He has become domineering, intrusive and outlandishly arrogant. He was actually massaging Kate’s thighs when I switched over. If I was Mr Humble I would be very concerned.
We were promised an explanation of the wonderful variety of flies and instead were given a token, short and largely uninstructive couple of minutes on flies, with large chunks of the hour-long show devoted to inane padding.
Even the normally worthy Simon King, who was undersea off Dorset, was reduced to buying crustaceans off the local fisherman to justify his expensive scuba-diving. Local sea creatures seemed to be keeping well away from the BBC cameras. How wise of them.
The BBC news, once so respected round the world, just goes from bad to worse. There was a headline introduction this week saying President Obama had compared the BP oil spill off Florida to the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Centre twin towers.
I was just un-dropping my jaw about his stupidity at mixing up a tragic accident which killed 11 people with a deliberate act of sabotage that wiped out more than 3,000, when the story started.
Of course he did no such thing. He said that the oil spill was to the environment what 9-11 was to terrorism, in that it was a multi-site event that would take a long time to deal with. That is not the same thing at all.
So BBC, when the cuts come your way, stop worrying about technology, and ratings, and hyperbole. Instead focus on standards, and accuracy, and helping the nation wise up, not dumb down.
In an increasingly complex and multi-faceted media world there is surely a place for a state-sponsored (but not controlled) broadcaster which is not totally focussed on commercial considerations.
Without the profit imperative, the BBC ought to focus on its Unique Selling Point: Quality. Instead it just gets dumber.
What evidence do I present? I will give just three examples: The World Cup, Springwatch and the News.
The quality of football at the World Cup has been a little disappointing, but that is nothing to the standard of the reporting. We sort of expect ITV and the satellite channels to be riddled with hyperbole.
But the BBC is just as guilty of talking up the latest genius of the beautiful game, who turns out to be incapable of kicking a ball, or catching one if a goalkeeper.
This interpretation relies on being able to understand what the pundits are saying. Over the years I have just about learned to translate the Scottish burr of Alan Hansen. But his English is crystal clear compared to Emmanuel Adebayor, the Togolese professional footballer who plays as a striker for Manchester City in the Premier League.
I am lost in admiration for the fact that he can babble on about a specialist subject like football in what is probably his third language. I couldn’t begin to match this feat.
But that is not the point. The point is that his accent is indecipherable.
In a desperate bid to get away from the World Cup, I switched over this week to watch Springwatch, which ought to be full of fluffy, cute creatures battling with tooth and claw to get a grip on life.
Instead it is full of the ridiculous twitterings and obscene gestures of Kate Humble and Chris Packham. When Packham first took over from Bill Odie he appeared quiet, knowledgeable and very much the junior partner to the veteran presenter Humble.
How the roles have reversed. She has gone from alpha female to whimpering, eye-lash fluttering, and archetype dumb blonde. He has become domineering, intrusive and outlandishly arrogant. He was actually massaging Kate’s thighs when I switched over. If I was Mr Humble I would be very concerned.
We were promised an explanation of the wonderful variety of flies and instead were given a token, short and largely uninstructive couple of minutes on flies, with large chunks of the hour-long show devoted to inane padding.
Even the normally worthy Simon King, who was undersea off Dorset, was reduced to buying crustaceans off the local fisherman to justify his expensive scuba-diving. Local sea creatures seemed to be keeping well away from the BBC cameras. How wise of them.
The BBC news, once so respected round the world, just goes from bad to worse. There was a headline introduction this week saying President Obama had compared the BP oil spill off Florida to the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Centre twin towers.
I was just un-dropping my jaw about his stupidity at mixing up a tragic accident which killed 11 people with a deliberate act of sabotage that wiped out more than 3,000, when the story started.
Of course he did no such thing. He said that the oil spill was to the environment what 9-11 was to terrorism, in that it was a multi-site event that would take a long time to deal with. That is not the same thing at all.
So BBC, when the cuts come your way, stop worrying about technology, and ratings, and hyperbole. Instead focus on standards, and accuracy, and helping the nation wise up, not dumb down.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Unholy trinity: Public, police and the media
NEWS today that Derrick Bird was followed by three police officers as he pursued his trail of death through the streets of Whitehaven and surrounding villages will no doubt ensure that media interest will continue.
Together with the opening of inquests into the thirteen deaths, there will be renewed impetus to the coverage, which will upset those residents of West Cumbria who want an end to the focus on such a distressing and negative view of their beloved area.
The three-way relationship between the local population, the police and the media is always a strained and complex one.
When the rampage started last Wednesday, there was a very real need for the media to pass on the message from the police that a dangerous gunman was on the loose. Great swathes of the Lake District were warned to take cover, which in such a large area in such a short time, could only be achieved with the help of professional communicators.
After Mr Bird was found dead at Boot, the media interest was roused by the scale and sheer bemusement at his awful deeds.
The speculation by the national dailies was about his parents’ will; his relationship with the more successful twin who was best friends with the family solicitor; his resentment at taking the Lion’s share of the care of his ailing mother; and his strained relationship with certain fellow cabbies.
The speed with which the media picked up on these details and reported them in an even-handed and amazingly accurate manner were all to the credit of the standard of reporting.
It was aided by the people of West Cumbria who are largely a helpful and uncynical bunch. They shared the need to know what on earth had happened to the psyche of one of their own.
This was obvious on the day after the events when I was helping a team from the National Broadcasting Corporation to understand and interpret what had happened for their American audience.
They had sent a team of five to Whitehaven and spent half a day compiling their one-minute report for breakfast TV, updating for lunch and knowing that by the evening news it would be swamped by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
They had two challenges. The first was the need to sub-title the West Cumbrian accents. The second was the lack, as they saw it, of help from the police.
In the land of the first amendment they have come to expect total and immediate co-operation from the law enforcers. Why wouldn’t the police confirm names? Why wouldn’t they give interviews outlining the innermost details of Bird’s life? Why no CCTV film or photographs of the actual shootings to broadcast live?
It has been a feature of the events of the last five days that the media has seemed to be at least one step ahead of the police.
But this isn’t really fair. The police have different priorities: gathering cast iron evidence; care for the victims; ensuring health and safety of the public to name just a few.
The media just wanted news, although their part in helping the wider community come to terms with what had happened was no less valuable.
By the time the Sunday newspapers came out, it was difficult to know what they could add to the story. But there were several genuine exclusive angles: Notably the Sunday People’s exposure of Bird’s failed relationship with a Thai girlfriend; and the Sunday Telegraph’s revelation that he had spent the night before his rampage watching a violent film and wondering about his own mental condition.
And so it goes on. Whitehaven and the rest of the area probably wish it was all over and they could return to carry on their lives.
But Derrick Bird’s actions were so extreme, morbid fascination with why he flipped so spectacularly is unlikely to end any time soon.
Together with the opening of inquests into the thirteen deaths, there will be renewed impetus to the coverage, which will upset those residents of West Cumbria who want an end to the focus on such a distressing and negative view of their beloved area.
The three-way relationship between the local population, the police and the media is always a strained and complex one.
When the rampage started last Wednesday, there was a very real need for the media to pass on the message from the police that a dangerous gunman was on the loose. Great swathes of the Lake District were warned to take cover, which in such a large area in such a short time, could only be achieved with the help of professional communicators.
After Mr Bird was found dead at Boot, the media interest was roused by the scale and sheer bemusement at his awful deeds.
The speculation by the national dailies was about his parents’ will; his relationship with the more successful twin who was best friends with the family solicitor; his resentment at taking the Lion’s share of the care of his ailing mother; and his strained relationship with certain fellow cabbies.
The speed with which the media picked up on these details and reported them in an even-handed and amazingly accurate manner were all to the credit of the standard of reporting.
It was aided by the people of West Cumbria who are largely a helpful and uncynical bunch. They shared the need to know what on earth had happened to the psyche of one of their own.
This was obvious on the day after the events when I was helping a team from the National Broadcasting Corporation to understand and interpret what had happened for their American audience.
They had sent a team of five to Whitehaven and spent half a day compiling their one-minute report for breakfast TV, updating for lunch and knowing that by the evening news it would be swamped by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
They had two challenges. The first was the need to sub-title the West Cumbrian accents. The second was the lack, as they saw it, of help from the police.
In the land of the first amendment they have come to expect total and immediate co-operation from the law enforcers. Why wouldn’t the police confirm names? Why wouldn’t they give interviews outlining the innermost details of Bird’s life? Why no CCTV film or photographs of the actual shootings to broadcast live?
It has been a feature of the events of the last five days that the media has seemed to be at least one step ahead of the police.
But this isn’t really fair. The police have different priorities: gathering cast iron evidence; care for the victims; ensuring health and safety of the public to name just a few.
The media just wanted news, although their part in helping the wider community come to terms with what had happened was no less valuable.
By the time the Sunday newspapers came out, it was difficult to know what they could add to the story. But there were several genuine exclusive angles: Notably the Sunday People’s exposure of Bird’s failed relationship with a Thai girlfriend; and the Sunday Telegraph’s revelation that he had spent the night before his rampage watching a violent film and wondering about his own mental condition.
And so it goes on. Whitehaven and the rest of the area probably wish it was all over and they could return to carry on their lives.
But Derrick Bird’s actions were so extreme, morbid fascination with why he flipped so spectacularly is unlikely to end any time soon.
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