Connecting with audiences

My PSB Online: investigating patterns of news personalization and customization in Britain and Denmark.

Benedetta Brevini came to JIC last Tuesday to introduce an interesting comparison between the English and Danish model of Online News websites.

“People are more and more able to personnalise their news consumption according to their interests and preferences,” she declared.

Many news websites have introduced a system of “news recommendation” and widgets produced according to target groups so that “the users can not only get faster to the news they are interested in but also aren’t shown the news they don’t care about”.

Mit DR is the new website for Denmark’s Public Service Broadcasting. The original idea was to make Mit DR an interactive platform where people could personalize their news page.

The BBC news website, as for it, does not provide full personalization of their news page and quoting Sophie Walpole, senior staff from the BBC Online team, Benedetta Brevini added: “This certainly does not work for us. I think we will never provide a full personalization of our content. It is very important to make sure that all the content we produce is fully available to people.”

Being able to personalize your news page is a really interesting option and proves how technologies can help journalism evolving, yet it raises concerns. “The adoption of news recommendations could undermine the PSB original role, Brevini argued, and I am not sure that putting the audience “under surveillance” is a good thing.

Journalism’s crisis, journalism’s opportunity. A comparative appraisal of the state of the news business in the United States and the Middle East.

Philip Seib, from the University of South California, then delivered a speech on the crisis journalism is facing today in different countries.

Seib blamed the Western news media for not adapting to new technology faster: “Many people say that journalism is in crisis, but it really depends on where you are. In the West, we witnessed media organizations failures to keep pace with the development of new technologies. In the developing countries, they learned a lot from it.”

He then focused on the news business in the United States explaining how much it changed in the past few years. “Before it was a one way communication, then CNN introduced all-day long news bulletins.

“The newest technologies changes this relationship much more. You are not just glancing at some paper or television, you participate. If you see something that you think is newsworthy, you ‘tweet’, take pictures and share.”

Most of Seib’s students never read newspapers for news, they go online: “The rising generation will mark an even more pronounced shift to technologies.”

New technology was thought to supplement the original model and not replace it, “that is not the case for the US,” Seib argued. “It amaze me how some news organizations are slow to keep up on these new technologies.”

“There is no reason to pay $50 every month to get your favorite paper on your doorstep every morning when you can get it for free online. And the public is getting used to get things for free.”

Philip Seib believes that news organization should gather and come up with an economic model to handle this problem. They need to agree on what the viewers should pay for and what they can give for free. “Otherwise people will all go on the Washington Post’s website which is totally free instead of paying a premium fee on other websites.”

“Journalism is facing a number of issues. When you add the economic crisis on top of that, you get a real storm. Many news organizations will suffer from this.”

Seib then tackled the topic of citizen journalism, arguing that “anyone can be a journalist today” and reach millions of readers. “It is free press in its true essence.”

The academic from South California then referred to the CNN effect by introducing the “Al Jazeira effect”. Al Jazeira is a famous arabic news channel. “Its recent coverage of the Gaza war had a big political impact,” Seib revealed. “It was condemning governments of countries such as Egypt for not coming to help.”

“When a crisis breaks out, everybody is watching Al Jazeira,” he said. This proves how much political power news television channels can have.

Investigative Journalism Workshop

Mr. Paul Lashmar spoke on the decline of investigative journalism across all media, but with some hope for the future.

Presenting some thourough research, Mr. Lashmar said that only 75 to 125 investigative journalists are employed at any one time, “scattered across the media.”

While television-based investigative journalism is in decline after a boom of investigative-based programs in the 90s, radio is “actually holding up in the midst of all this. Newspapers are seriously in trouble… It is Radio Four that does most of the investigative journalism.”

He said that The Sunday Times have laid off almost all their investigative journalists, while the Observer and the Independent have stopped doing it on a regular basis.

The BBC, he said ‘will be the umbrella under which Investigative journalism will survive’. However, this raises questions as to whether the BBC is the best location for this 4th estate journalism to survive.

Better Locations

Showing better models, he mentioned ProPublica, a foundation-based investigative journalism organisation, and Spot.US, a Californian organisation.

These organisations supply a huge net of contacts through which they can sell their stories to bigger media institutions.

However, the legal environment in the UK puts both of these models at risk: technically, the donors are the publishers of the investigations, and they are the ones exposed to lawsuits.

A Brighter Future?

Mr. Lashmar did end on a good note however, mentioning Global Radio News, a London based agency which “dots journalists around the world”, making them available to institutions who want to conduct investigations, as well as creating a global community of knowledge.

Hayian Wang followed Mr. Lashmar’s speech with research on five Chinese newspapers reporting on corruption in the Chinese government, and comparing the relatonship between the media and the government as “clientelism”.

She concluded that the more independent the newspapers, the higher the number of articles on investigations concerning the governments. But why do these papers wait to publish the investigations?

Questions and Answers:

To conclude, a Q&A session brought up an interesting point on the Spot.US model of investigative journalism. A question from the floor mentioned that any single donor can only contribute 10% to an investigation.

Mr. Lashmar said that the Spot.US model is tricky, but then, it seems to be among the most succesful.

BBC, Sky News at the University of Westminster

BBC Director General Mark Thompson and Sky News associate
editor Simon Bucks are two of several journalists speaking
at Journalism In Crisis.

JIC is a conference which the University of Westminster and the
British Journalism Review are putting on jointly.

Over two days, the event will combine talks and smaller
breakout sessions on topics ranging from citizen journalism
to news as a business to how the web is changing all news media.

The event runs 19-20 May, 2009  at the university’s campus
in central London at 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW.

Keynote Speakers

On Tuesday, James Curran a professor at Goldsmiths College will
deliver ‘Journalism in Crisis,’ the first of two keynote speeches that day.

Professor Curran is the director of the Goldsmiths’ media center and
has written many books on media, history, influence and business.

The second keynote on Tuesday will be from Todd Gitlin, a professor
of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.

Giltin writes about the media and America.

Over 40 University of Westmintser journalism students will  be at the
conference covering it live for Westminster News Online.

Opportunities

Coverage which the students produce will also be offered to
the large UK media organisations like Sky, BBC and ITV News.

“That’s an exciting opportunity for [our students],” Rob Benfield says.

Benfield, a TV veteran with over 35 years of experience, is now
a lecturer at the University of Westminster.  He is executive producing
the student coverage.

Geoffrey Davies, the head of Westminster’s Journalism and Mass
Communications department also thinks the conference is good
for future journalists.

“This is a huge amount of work for students,” Davies says.
“But, it’s invaluable experience that can only help them in
their careers.”

Research and Alternatives

Davies thinks that to have the  Department of Journalism and Mass
Communication, and the British Journalism Review cooperating to put
on  Journalism in Crisis shows the university at its best.

“Events like this confirm our status as the leading media research
university in the country,” Davies says.

In its brief on Journalism In Crisis, Westminster reports that  this
conference will address how journalism’s traditional business model
is under threat.

But, the brief says it will also discuss the alternatives emerging on the web.

It’s the alternatives that are likely to be most interesting to the students in
attendance, alternatives which some students will already be utilizing as they
cover the conference live for WNOL.

Woman assaulted ‘every six seconds’

The alleged abuse suffered by pop star Rihanna has focused attention on violence in relationships. The singer was recently pictured looking bruised and beaten in showbiz magazine TMZ, and her boyfriend Chris Brown has been arrested for an alleged assault.

According to Pat Craven, who runs the anti-domestic abuse ‘Freedom Programme’, one woman is assaulted every six seconds in the UK. And another survey of 600 carried out by teenage girl magazine ‘Bliss’ revealed that one in four girls had been hit.

Pat Craven featured on the BBC documentary ‘Dangerous Love: A Comic Relief Special’ on Tuesday night and spoke to me about domestic abuse and the possible reasons why women stay with their abusive partners.

In Pat’s experience, female victims stay because they have little clarity of what is actually happening to them.

Controlled

“They are completely controlled, it’s almost like they’ve been brainwashed. They’ve got no idea what’s happening to them,” she said.

Often, victims of domestic abuse are isolated by their partners and they can feel that there is no other option but to stay in the potentially fatal situation.

Pat says that women are often sent to the Freedom Programme by the social services but said: “They don’t know why. They haven’t the faintest idea they’re being abused.

“You’re looking at someone who is being completely controlled by the man she is with and the society she lives in,” she said. “She has no idea what’s happening to her. He may say to her ‘I love you’ and it won’t happen again. She won’t have any other information not to believe him.”

Confession

On the BBC documentary ‘Dangerous Love’, celebrity model Danielle Lloyd spoke out about her isolation when she was in an abusive relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

“At the time I moved in with my ex and spent less and less time with my family,” she said.

Danielle also spoke about her reasons for staying with her violent boyfriend. “Its because I thought I was in love…it’s a love-hate thing,” she said. “I felt like I had nothing else in my life apart from him, even though my mum and dad were there… he was my whole life.”

The programme featured the agony aunt from Bliss magazine who advised anyone suffering from physical abuse to tell somebody.

“Nobody’s going to judge you for it. You need to speak up and there are places to go.”

Women’s day is Saturday on 7 March when there will be a march starting in Portman Square in London to protest violence against women.

We will have a reporter on site where at least one million women are expected to join in.

By Charlotte Hanger

For information and support contact:

National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000 247
The Freedom Programme, Pat Craven: 01547 520 228