Some say I've spent the last couple of days stealing snowmen...but in reality life is more mundane.
I've been putting on some layers, editing some chapters, putting on some more layers and trying to draw the thesis together.
During the most recent chapter re-draft, I felt I needed a line saying: 'The BBC now has x number of blogs...' and realised I didn't know the value of 'x'.
So some numbers for you taken from this index on the BBC news website. I suppose there may be other blogs lurking in the BBC blogosphere that haven't been added to the list but it looks like a fairly comprehensive round up to me.
BBC Blog Network: Number of Blogs
News - 90
Sport - 47
TV - 19
Online - 4
Radio - 42
Other - 7
Total - 209
In the spirit of the 'data journalism' age, I've uploaded this data with links to all the blogs in a Google spreadsheet.
Although there had been earlier blogging experiments, Nick Robinson's blog was the first one launched on the dedicated BBC Blog Network in December 2005. 43 blogs were set up within the first year.
Showing posts with label Nick Robinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Robinson. Show all posts
Friday, 3 December 2010
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Links for October all in one go
Sorry good people - not much blogging here this month. There are a couple of my posts up at the Frontline Club on Wikileaks and the U.S. Navy's social media manual if you missed them and you're into that kind of thing.
Expect a few more thoughts on Wikileaks at the Frontline Club or elsewhere soon...
Here's a round up of links that have caught my eye while I've been writing the conclusion to my thesis. (One day, I tell myself, it will end).
Blogging and the BBC
The BBC's Andrew Marr describes bloggers as though they are some kind of obscure mammalian curiosity being uncovered in a wildlife programme by David Attenborough:
We'll end on the kind of disconcerting note you only get when you accidentally sit on a piano with this article on the troublesome world of blogging the drugs war in Mexico.
Expect a few more thoughts on Wikileaks at the Frontline Club or elsewhere soon...
Here's a round up of links that have caught my eye while I've been writing the conclusion to my thesis. (One day, I tell myself, it will end).
Blogging and the BBC
- BBC Political Editor, Nick Robinson wins blogging comment award. But Left Foot Forward is not convinced...
- For what it's worth, Rupert Murdoch on blogging and journalism:
“Now, it would certainly serve the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted – or replaced as navigators in our society by bloggers and bloviators. Bloggers can have a social role – but that role is very different to that of the professional seeking to uncover facts, however uncomfortable”.Blogging and the truth
- MP Nadine Dorries explains that her blog is "70% fiction and 30% fact", but also argues that it is a tool for her constituents to get to know her better. I wonder how that's going...
The BBC's Andrew Marr describes bloggers as though they are some kind of obscure mammalian curiosity being uncovered in a wildlife programme by David Attenborough:
"A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people.Moving to a national level, most Brits, we discover, are angry (and some drunk)...
"OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk. But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night.
"It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism."A section on guidelines, guidelines and guidelines (not necessarily in that order)
- The BBC's Editorial Guidelines are launched.
- The Guardian publishes some new social media guidelines for their journalists...
- ...while the BBC's Helen Boaden has to point out in an email to staff that Twitter is not a place where BBC journalists can express their political views on this, that and the other. Melanie Phillips is hyperbolically outraged in a way that only Melanie Phillips can be:
"I remember a time when it was considered a hanging offence for a BBC news operative to express a political opinion in public. Ah, those were the days, eh. Different country."Rare gem of useful research material
- More practically, this is a great round up of research into linking by traditional news organisations.
- Reuters tries to improve comments by bringing in points (and prizes?)
"Our new process grants a kind of VIP status on people who have had comments approved previously. When you register to comment on Reuters.com, our moderation software tags you as a new user. Your comments go through the same moderation process as before, but every time we approve a comment, you score a point."And finally...
We'll end on the kind of disconcerting note you only get when you accidentally sit on a piano with this article on the troublesome world of blogging the drugs war in Mexico.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Nick Robinson looking for "less abusive debate" on blogs
The BBC's Political Editor is interviewed for the BBC College of Journalism:
Transcript of Nick on blogging:
"I wrote a blog because a very clever guy who works behind the scenes, a guy called Giles Wilson at the BBC, came up with the idea that I should. I didn't even know what a blog was when he asked me. I mean this is a long time ago. This is almost a decade ago that I first started writing before I left the BBC to go to ITN.
"And at the time, really, I don't think there were political blogs at that stage. So I started writing a blog very early because some inspired individual behind the scenes at the BBC came up with the idea.
"And for me, I loved it because there were things that you could write that you simply don't get the voice to do on a tight news bulletin. I liked the interactivity of it. I liked the fact that you could be provisional in your judgements. It was a rolling process.
"Now it's completely different - there are lots of political blogs. There are people who can be faster than me on air because they don't do the other jobs that I do. There are people who do it full time which I can't possibly do. So I've had to reconsider what the role of the blog is. And in a sense it seems to me that any blog has got to be your voice.
How do you react to the comments?
"I've found the comments to be the biggest problem with the blog because while initially I liked the interactivity, what I've discovered is that a huge percentage of comments on my blog are frankly just abusive, either abusive of me, or abusive of each other or abusive of politicians. And I haven't yet found a way to cut through that and to get the sort of dialogue that I would really like.
"So I'm going to be honest with you and I've said this before and I've upset some people. I don't read the comments anything like as much as I used to because there is too much static white noise in them and not enough pure feedback. But if we could find a way of having a more thoughtful, less abusive debate via blogs I think that would be a good thing."
Transcript of Nick on blogging:
"I wrote a blog because a very clever guy who works behind the scenes, a guy called Giles Wilson at the BBC, came up with the idea that I should. I didn't even know what a blog was when he asked me. I mean this is a long time ago. This is almost a decade ago that I first started writing before I left the BBC to go to ITN.
"And at the time, really, I don't think there were political blogs at that stage. So I started writing a blog very early because some inspired individual behind the scenes at the BBC came up with the idea.
"And for me, I loved it because there were things that you could write that you simply don't get the voice to do on a tight news bulletin. I liked the interactivity of it. I liked the fact that you could be provisional in your judgements. It was a rolling process.
"Now it's completely different - there are lots of political blogs. There are people who can be faster than me on air because they don't do the other jobs that I do. There are people who do it full time which I can't possibly do. So I've had to reconsider what the role of the blog is. And in a sense it seems to me that any blog has got to be your voice.
How do you react to the comments?
"I've found the comments to be the biggest problem with the blog because while initially I liked the interactivity, what I've discovered is that a huge percentage of comments on my blog are frankly just abusive, either abusive of me, or abusive of each other or abusive of politicians. And I haven't yet found a way to cut through that and to get the sort of dialogue that I would really like.
"So I'm going to be honest with you and I've said this before and I've upset some people. I don't read the comments anything like as much as I used to because there is too much static white noise in them and not enough pure feedback. But if we could find a way of having a more thoughtful, less abusive debate via blogs I think that would be a good thing."
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
The SuperPower season and the BBC's love for blogs
BBC SuperPower Season
The BBC will team up with Global Voices for a 'SuperPower' season on the Internet. Steve Herrmann reveals all in this blog post.
Meanwhile, BBC presenter Mishal Husain has been twittering away on the Superpower project asking whether the Internet is the greatest superpower the world has ever seen and the like.
The BBC's love for blogs...
Last week, the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson described comments on his blog as "a waste of time" prompting journalism.co.uk to ask whether the BBC was "falling out of love with blogging".
Journalism.co.uk might have pointed out that Nick is still blogging away long after he started his first blog for the BBC way back in 2001. And that the BBC has started a new Arts blog recently, got this one and this one running properly at the back end of last year. Then there's this TV blog that started in February. And did I mention that Have Your Say has been turned into a blog too?
OK, so maybe there is not the 'first love' excitement of Paul Mason dodging behind the BBC's bike sheds to set up his Newsnight blog in the early days but the BBC and blogs appear to have settled down into a pretty committed long term relationship.
In any case, Nick was going after comments rather than blogging per se. I might have some sympathy with him if I attracted his level of comments on any blog I wrote. As it is I think I can say: "you don't know what you've got til it's gone".
But on a serious note it seems to me that comments remain a serious issue for the BBC and other media organisations. What to do with them? How to display them? Do you allow quantity to the detriment of quality? And if you go for 'quality' - whatever you decide that to mean - are you willing to suffer the inevitable accusations of censorship, bias etc (especially problematic when you're funded by a licence fee)?
To be honest, I'm glad it's somebody else's problem. In the meantime, I'll publish every comment I get. Unless it's spam. (Don't get any ideas, spammers.)
Totally free bonus interesting stuff section:
The BBC will team up with Global Voices for a 'SuperPower' season on the Internet. Steve Herrmann reveals all in this blog post.
"As part of the BBC's SuperPower season - a special series on the internet - we will be teaming up with Global Voices, a non-profit blogging network of citizen journalists, to present a different range of perspectives and commentary from around the world."It's a move described by one former BBC journalist as "long overdue". (And I know someone else at the Corporation who has been banging on about this sort of thing for some time.)
Meanwhile, BBC presenter Mishal Husain has been twittering away on the Superpower project asking whether the Internet is the greatest superpower the world has ever seen and the like.
The BBC's love for blogs...
Last week, the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson described comments on his blog as "a waste of time" prompting journalism.co.uk to ask whether the BBC was "falling out of love with blogging".
Journalism.co.uk might have pointed out that Nick is still blogging away long after he started his first blog for the BBC way back in 2001. And that the BBC has started a new Arts blog recently, got this one and this one running properly at the back end of last year. Then there's this TV blog that started in February. And did I mention that Have Your Say has been turned into a blog too?
OK, so maybe there is not the 'first love' excitement of Paul Mason dodging behind the BBC's bike sheds to set up his Newsnight blog in the early days but the BBC and blogs appear to have settled down into a pretty committed long term relationship.
In any case, Nick was going after comments rather than blogging per se. I might have some sympathy with him if I attracted his level of comments on any blog I wrote. As it is I think I can say: "you don't know what you've got til it's gone".
But on a serious note it seems to me that comments remain a serious issue for the BBC and other media organisations. What to do with them? How to display them? Do you allow quantity to the detriment of quality? And if you go for 'quality' - whatever you decide that to mean - are you willing to suffer the inevitable accusations of censorship, bias etc (especially problematic when you're funded by a licence fee)?
To be honest, I'm glad it's somebody else's problem. In the meantime, I'll publish every comment I get. Unless it's spam. (Don't get any ideas, spammers.)
Totally free bonus interesting stuff section:
- Match of the Day: Plaut/Whitehead/Horrocks/BBC World Service vs Geldoff/BandAid/NGOs/Ethiopia
- What the BBC's Strategy Review really says about online.
- The BBC have hired some consulting people to "work with them looking at the overlap between their enthusiastic entry into the world of social media (especially blogs) and their responsibility to be accountable to the people who pay their licence fee."
