The BBC - A Case Study, Past and Present.

'BBC News' currently stands as the world's largest broadcasting organisation and produces approximately 120 hours of radio, on-line and televised news coverage a day. The BBC employs around 3,500 members of staff; more than half of which are Journalists. Much of the news produced by the BBC is broadcast from the Television Centre.

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BBC Television Centre where all news is broadcast (above)

Prior to this, the BBC rented out Alexander Palace, London. The British Broadcasting Company first came to life in November 1922 when it produced its first ever radio bulletin, at which point it had four staff members. Radio proved to be a big hit and people often met up regularly to listen to news and sporting events. The commissioning of music and drama meant that popularity for the BBC continued to increase.

BBC News then went on to produce a television service, first aired in 1936.
With more and more people purchasing television sets, it gave the BBC an opportunity to supply people with news and current affairs in a way that they had never managed before.  Despite this proving very popular, in 1939, the BBC suffered problems due to the outbreak of the war. They found themselves under a huge amount of pressure and the Broadcasting House was thought to be a potential target for German bombers. This scary prediction was proved correct in October of the following year. Newsreader, Bill Belfrage was on air in the nine o'clock slot when the bomb hit the building. Due to great professionalism, he continued but was not allowed to react due to strict security reasons. Seven people were killed in the devastation. 

The shocking destruction German bomb left to The Broadcasting House in 1940 (above)

Morale at this time was inevitably low, however the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 meant sales in television sets increased and gave the BBC an opportunity to fight back against the unfortunate events they had encountered. Broadcasting increased rapidly in five years, from thirty hours a week in 1950 through to 50 by 1955. However, for the first time the BBC had competition and what with such a major event due to be broadcast, this made the competition even more daunting. ITV emerged in 1953 and many of the staff working for the BBC swapped to join the newcomer, ITV. This proved difficult for the BBC to overcome. 

However, a change was in sight when the BBC moved to 'The Television Centre' where they remain to this day. This move took place in 1960 and saw the creation of new programmes such as 'The Week That Was', which again boosted the BBC's popularity meaning they were slowly winning the battle against competition. In 1964, the BBC expanded to create BBC Two with the idea that this would work along side BBC One. This was another success for the BBC. However, whilst reporting events such as the Falklands War and the 1984 'Miners Strike', the BBC were heavily criticised for being biased in their reports.

In the late 1990's under the rule of John Birt, the BBC was given a complete re-vamp and many alterations were made. Internet facilities were also launched meaning this offered an alternative method to broadcast news.

Greg Dyke now leads the BBC and has released more channels for children as well as news channels and radio stations for adults, offering daily up-to-date news.

John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

John Locke (above)

John Locke was a philosopher who was very much in favour of empiricism and this is clearly demonstrated in his work, his most famous being 'The Essay of Human Understanding.' Locke opposed many of his predecessor Idealist philosophers, in particular Decartes. 

Locke believed that from birth we are completely void of all knowledge and our brains are similar to a blank, white canvas. We have no personality and as we grow older we learn more about the environment we are surrounded by and gradually knowledge begins to make imprints on our minds. He asks himself that if this is the case and we are all born without any innate knowledge, how does this develop? His answer is a simple idea and one which I struggle to challenge. He claimed that knowledge is learnt entirely from experience. This is then broken down into sensation and reflection.  

Sensation, he believes is a method we use to understand external objects and beings or 'sensible objects'. For example, we can familiarise with the texture of the object using our touch sense or the smell of a food we like using our smell. All five senses allow us to gain further knowledge about the external objects we share our environment with. 

Reflection, is slightly different and this refers to how we can understand internal processes and concepts which we are unable to rely on our senses to understand. An example of how reflection may be used is 'love'. This is something that we are unable to see or touch, but we understand this through past experiences which we then later reflect on and recognise this as being love.  Locke claims that there is nothing within our minds that has not derived from either sensation or reflection. He poses a difficult question to the reader, asking them to challenge this and I cannot honestly think of anything that has not come from either of these two concepts. 

Throughout the essay, Locke refers to children frequently to emphasise his points. He explains how whilst a child is developing through the first few years of their life, they will experience a wave of different objects and emotions, all of which probably will not register with them and will probably cause confusion. It will be at a later point in their life when a similar situation occurs that they will then reflect on past events and gain knowledge. An example, Locke presents is the idea that if a child were to be kept in a totally black room until they were a fully grown adult they would have no idea about other colours, only those which they had been presented with as a child. This supports his theory of sensation feeding us with knowledge.

I also have an example which supports Locke's theory...

During my English Language A Level Course, we came across an interesting story of a small child called Genie, who was locked away in a small room in her home town of Temple City, California.  She was strapped to a potty chair and was deprived of all human communication. When she was discovered in 1970, Genie had no or very little language. This is because as children we learn language from hearing sounds from others around us, and as Genie was denied this she had only developed the normal sounds you would hear from 'babbling' babies. This also supports Locke's theory as it suggests that humans learn knowledge from their senses (in this case hearing) from objects and other beings surrounding them.

Locke then takes his ideas slightly deeper in the latter part of his essay, he discusses the soul and dreaming. He explains how when one dreams, they can also experience pleasure and pain despite the events taking place not being 'real'. He explains that the soul is constantly thinking and believes that as sleep takes us into an almost unconscious state, the soul has the ability to split and even inhabit another body. During my seminar, it was suggested that this may mean his empiricist work is questionable, I  however believe he is showing empiricism throughout as he states that he finds his claims difficult to prove in some areas as he lacks evidence. Idealist philosophers such as Decartes would never suggest this and believe that by using a process of 'figuring things out'  they can understand the world. Locke draws his essay to conclude that thought processes begin when an individual engages within their first 'sensation', this then goes hand in hand with 'reflection'. 

I enjoyed Locke's reading and this week I felt more relaxed in the seminar. 

For now, watch this space.

Media Law

I haven't been able to update my blog at all since last week or so due to problems with my internet connection so I plan to try and do a pretty hefty blog on all the interesting stuff I have learnt about the laws and protections in place that Journalists must obey and take advantage of.
....I think a lot of people are perhaps (and I was one of these too) very ignorant to the sheer number of laws in place that Journalists have to obey when reporting news. A combination of reading 'McNae's Essential Law for Journalists' and attending Media Lectures have enlightened me about some of these.

So far, we have covered Malice (something which if done is pretty much the end of your career as you are likely to have a huge army of those involved suing you for every penny you are worth!) Although,  I suppose this is probably a reasonable punishment if you are to go around publishing lies....
We have learnt a lot about courts and how a Journalist must approach a story about court room issues, for example 'Presumption of Innocence'. That very well known saying - 'Innocent until proven guilty' is very important here. I did not realise just how much vocabulary can either make or break a story especially when written about events that have happened within a court room. An example of this would be the use of 'theft' and 'robbery'. Theft obviously means the removal of another individuals belonging's whilst robbery, despite being very similar requires the use of force or violence. If you were to use one of these in the wrong context, the individual that was accused could sue for libel.

As Journalists, our job is to serve the public with information that is in their best interest and must be 'good for society'. This links to the idea that 'Justice must be seen to be done' and as Journalists it is our job to inform the general public of events happening in court on their behalf.

The next big issue to be weary about when writing is 'Defamation'. This simply means publishing a story about an individual or group of people that either exposes hatred, ridicule or contempt; causes him/her to be shunned or avoided or lowers him/her in the minds of right thinking people.
 This if course, when thinking about  National News is extremely difficult to avoid (there probably wouldn't be much news at all without Defamation!) This is why there are three very important defences in place to try and protect Journalists from getting sued with libel action.
The first being 'Justification' or in other words 'Is the story true and can it be proved?' If so, the Journalist is fully protected as the events happened and the Journalist is simply reporting in the interest of the general public.
The second defence is 'Fair Comment'. This is an opinion, although for this to be a suitable defence it is usually used on much more subtle defamatory statements. If you were to perhaps label someone as a rapist or murderer without Justification, it is very doubtful that you could use Fair Comment as your defence!
And the final defence when all else fails is 'Qualified Privilege'. This gives Journalists exemption from the law so long as certain regulations are followed, the story must be completely flawless and 100% accurate. If errors are found, QP is lost. The story must also be free from Malice.
'Absolute Privilege' belongs to honourable people within  society such as the Queen, Judges of the court etc. and they are totally exempt from all laws.

In all National newspapers and television, when a story is being reported 'Positive Identification' will be used especially when discussing one individual in particular. Quite frequently age will be used, along with occupation and address. This is to protect the Journalist from libel should there be another individual under the same name, as they too would have been defamed. 'Accidental Libel' occurs when Positive Identification has been used but due to unfortunate chance, another individual still matches the identification listed. In this rare situation, the Journalist is fully protected. When a photograph can be used this helps to lower the chances of another individual suing over identification.

I am excited to learn more about laws that Journalists are required to follow and fascinated by them.
For now....Watch this space!

WINOL

Having watched the most recent news bulletin broadcast on WINOL, I was overall very impressed and excited at the prospect that I will able to contribute to something similar in my second year...

One of my first impressions was how professional the whole bulletin looked. I especially liked the way the camera would cross over to footage of the story that was being spoken about at the time. For example, when the story regarding students being refused entry to nightclubs was on, it crossed over to some footage of a local nightclub in Winchester. This reminded me of the techniques used in National news.
The use of interviews was really effective too, I liked the use of statements and in particular the one taken from Steve Brine, where moving images were placed in the background. Some people can think it deters the attention away from the text, but I actually thought this worked really well.

However, there were some areas I felt that could have been improved. In some areas during the footage, the sound quality was quite low meaning it was difficult for me to fully understand what was being said by the commentator. An example of this was during the Sport section covering Bath Spa. This footage in particular made the commentator become really unclear.
Other than that, I found the bulletin very entertaining and I felt that it appealed to students. The stories were of interest and were covered in a professional. I also like the use of two presenters. This makes a subtle change of voice which works well when moving to a different area of news, in this case Sport.

Watching the video has made me excited about participating in this next year! Well done!