BBC College of Journalism Blog - A vigorous and robust discussion about journalism from every perspective.
- Charles Miller |
- Wednesday 11 May 2011, 17:18
Some of the key people in news organisations today are programmers: not people who schedule or commission programmes but those who write software.
News is an increasingly hi-tech business with a lot going on behind the scenes to create new ways to filter and visualise content and engage with audiences. But how much should this be part of the remit of a mainstream media organisation, and how much left to tech specialists working elsewhere?
That's one of the issues under discussion in the fourth session of the BBC Social Media Summit: 'Technology and Innovation'.
As the online capabilities of both journalists and users develop, what barriers remain to providing content the way both would choose?
And how will the ever-growing importance of mobile technologies change the answers, as we move into a world where content moves seamlessly between devices?
Please contribute your thoughts, ideas and experiences in Comments below, and we'll feed them into the debate on Friday. What practical changes should we be focussing on?
The panel includes Mark Little (Storyful) and Mark Rock (Audioboo). Details of the Summit and confirmed guests here; full list of attendees here.
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About Discussion on CoJo
A vigorous and robust discussion about journalism from every perspective.
#bbcsms: BBC Social Media Summit
A one-day summit examining how mainstream media is dealing with the challenges posed by social media.
9.30am - 4pm, Friday 20 May 2011,
BBC White City, London W12 7TS.
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Comments
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I would argue that all the technology and computer programming in the world cannot help a news organisation if they are not developed by people with a journalistic background and if they are not actually used by the journalists in the newsroom and in the field.
That is not to devalue technology or social media in any way but their true power as tools for journalists and news organisations can only be realised if they are used in a way which functionally and consistently enhances the process of journalism.
It is not enough to point to some shiny new technology or social media toy which you are using if it does not help you every day in either the newsgathering or news production process.
Some of the best examples of how technology and social media can help journalists are in the area of curation..developing tools and systems which help to sort the verified and useful content on the Web from all the noise.
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David Clinch is surely right about the critical importance of editorial input and real world usefulness for the adoption of new technology and tools in the newsroom.
The question of how much should tech development be part of a mainstream media organisation's remit, and how much left to tech specialists working elsewhere, is a perennially tricky one. But being clear about your main strategies, identifying the technology you need to deliver them, and sourcing that technology from the best available supplier - whether internal or external - wouldn't be a bad way to approach it.
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I agree with David completely - curating social content is quickly becoming the core part of our job. Our audience expects anything the BBC to broadcast (and even to a degree, retweet) to be reliable.
And too often new tools are created with apparently no regard for journalists or the audience..!
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Certainly agree with David and James - curation is a really interesting new area of development in journalism.
In terms of jobs and skills, I'm envious of anyone with even a slither of data interrogation or programming skills - it's a massive knowledge gap in mainstream journalism and you're seeing people move quickly inside organisations if they are (for example) able to turn an ONS spreadsheet into an infographic etc.
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