Journalistic standards

Following on from my post about the licence fee etc. in a previous post, I have found another reason to criticise the BBC - this article.

Here's an example of why that piece was badly put together:

"A 2005 study showed that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people could increase GDP growth by 0.6%."

This was a study from two years ago. The information might be accurate, but wouldn't it be better if the journalist used a more recent reference? If there's no study covering this from 2006 or this year, go and look for another type of source. Also, what is this study called and who did it? It's common (and required) practice in universities and many other places to cite your references properly. You would think that someone from an organisation such as the BBC would know that you do that to prove the reliability of the information.

Ok, next point:

"Nearly half a million people, described by the UN as "the poorest of the poor", will soon be able to make mobile calls."

"It is hoped that the connections will help improve healthcare and education, as well as boosting the local economy."

The UN thinks that mobile in Africa would help solve problems such as healthcare and education? I can see that it would help if you need to contact the emergency services and you're in the middle of nowhere, but surely the most important things would be to improve training, build more hospitals, provide medical instruments and increase the provision of effective drugs. Mobile/Cellphones cannot improve those three things. As for education, the important things must be books and other reference resources, plus training for teachers.

Another interesting thing is that I can find no other coverage of this story on any other the other major news websites (e.g. CNN, Reuters) or after looking through the results on several search engines (e.g. Google, Live Search, Yahoo, Mahalo). I found nothing on Technorati or del.icio.us either. That might just mean that the BBC is way ahead of the competition on this story, but it's also likely that nobody else finds this newsworthy.

There is little or no balance to this article either. You can read plenty of positives and other assorted information about the project, but their is no criticism anywhere. There are no quotes from anybody saying things like 'this aspect of the Millennium Villages project is a waste of time and money'.

Anyway, there are some positives to the project. It is another way of improving the resources for the poorest people and mobile/cellphones can be useful when there is no-one else nearby who can help - but that is all.

This is just one article by one of their journalists too. It is not representative of the entire corporation. However, there should be efforts to prevent low quality articles such as this from being submitted to the website.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: BBC, Journalism, Mobile Phones, Cellphones,

How do you get your news?

Originally people got news via the radio, broadsheet newspapers and occasionally via the cinema screen. This was perfectly fine for many years. However, with the increased use of technology people seek (or should seek) other sources to get a high standard of news.

If you stick with one source, such as the newspaper, it might give you plenty of information, but your views could become biased as you're only getting one angle on events. Also, newspapers have to cater for the majority because if they do that then they are more likely to get a high number of sales. What if the majority like to read about something that you're not interested in - or vice-versa?

Sometimes, the audience is not the only factor in deciding what news is released. It is an unfortunate fact of life the some media sources are heavily influenced by big businesses. For instance, a big business who owns a news network might not want a crisis relating to them broadcast 24/7. There could also be the threat of sponsorship withdrawal. Some news sources could be heavily dependent on sponsors to keep them running. What would happen if a news item put a sponsor in a bad light? The deal could be cancelled and then that news source could cease to exist.

I am a big advocate of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and RSS aggregators. It allows me to get news from several online sources without having to go through each individual website. I can get text-based news, download podcasts and video news and also go straight to the webpage of a particular news item if needed. I can also choose which type of news I receive. If e.g. I don't want to read about Big Brother, then I don't subscribe to any news feeds which would give me that information.

In the morning, I listen to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. I also occasionally watch both local and national news on TV. Yes, most of the TV and radio is BBC, but I still have the variety of RSS-based news sources to keep things more balanced.

Earlier I briefly mentioned podcasts. I think these can be hugely important. Like RSS, it allows you to get news whenever you want and pick the types of news you get. I get a large amount of tech news via this method, but you could get stuff about sport or politics.

Online media means a huge growth in 'user-generated content'. You can get news, commentary and opinions from blogs, wikis and videos. By 'users', I meant the people who would normally receive the content, for instance me. There has been some criticism of this as these people don't necessarily have professional journalism experience. However, just because people don't have that experience doesn't mean they can't do research and backup their content with facts. When I comment on current affairs in this blog I always make sure I use multiple references and use quotations relevant to what I'm talking about. The theory is that this will give my opinions more of a weighting.

I can see a day where there are no newspapers. I could quite easily stop using the likes of TV and radio now and just use the internet for my news. I could go to websites and watched news over a webstream, continue to use RSS and continue to get podcasts and download videos. I'd save money because I wouldn't be subscribing to a newspaper. I wouldn't have to waste time waiting for an item to be discussed on the TV news - I could get information about that item immediately by going online.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: News, Online Media, Newspapers, TV, Radio, Information