- Peter Barron
- 30 Jun 06, 04:10 PM
Last week I was taking issue with the Guardian's Emily Bell on the subject of podcasting in an article entitled "Top of the Pods". This week I find myself taking part in a podcast, in discussion with said Emily and a chap called Rob who's the editor of an independent podcast called "", of which I was previously unaware.
It sounds like some sort of anxiety dream, but the proof that it really did happen can be downloaded at the Guardian's . The striking thing about the Guardian's podcast is that it's a tiny operation - a Mac in a room with a little sound desk and a couple of microphones. But the result is that what was first a newspaper and then a website is now effectively in the radio business. As Rob pointed out, the great thing about podcasting is you don't need funding or a licence or anyone's permission - you just do it. Emily's point is - given all that - should the mighty ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ really be doing so much?
(And talking of spooky coincidences, how about ?)
Not that the citadels of the old media are exactly crumbling. I bumped into Today's Jim Naughtie at the chancellor's summer drinks this week. He was telling how within an hour of their item about dogs' names more than 400 listeners had emailed the programme with pictures of their dogs (more here).
So if dogs are your thing - and it seems for a great many people they are - Terry Wogan's corny old maxim that the pictures are better on the radio appears these days to be becoming literally true. Incidentally, when the Chancellor finally arrived he headed straight for the boys from . New media may be powering ahead, but with Rupert Murdoch whether to support David Cameron at the next election, Gordon Brown has no illusions where the old media power still resides.
Elsewhere... we've had plenty of our own user-generated content this week - much of it following in relation to Newsnight's report about secret loans to a Belgian club - and not all of it polite. Frequently asked questions have included: why did Newsnight decide to investigate Arsenal when much more serious things are going on elsewhere in soccer, did we time our item to coincide with David Dein's re-election bid to the FA board, and now that Arsenal have been cleared will Newsnight be apologising?
Here are some answers.
I've no doubt there are all sorts of murky things going on at football clubs up and down the country and across the continent, but the reason we looked at Arsenal was that we were shown a document proving that Arsenal had provided secret loans to prop up Beveren. No, we didn't plan our item to coincide with Mr Dein's election - we learned about that on the day of broadcast.
And no, no plans to apologise. Arsene Wenger himself is on the record as saying "there is no question of financial support" to Beveren because "this is not allowed". Arsenal continued to deny a financial relationship until the day of our broadcast and then admitted they'd lent a million pounds. That isn't, as some viewers have suggested, a non-story. It's a fact, but what the FA and FIFA choose to do about it is a question for them.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
- Ric Bailey
- 30 Jun 06, 12:01 PM
It seemed like a good idea at the time... and I think it still is...
The teenagers who won (and are producing next week's programme) decided they wanted a Joe Public panellist - and a young one at that.
They also wanted some new-fangled internetty way of finding the right person - get 18 to 25 year olds to send in a video clip of themselves on their mobile phone.
Well, we had a pretty good response in the circumstances. It has to be said, a fair few entries never quite overcame the technological hurdle (or was it our ability to fathom how to access them?). By no stretch could you say those entering were a representative sample of the age group - but it was striking how many said they were Conservative supporters. And each assumed they'd be highly unusual to hold such views when so young. And surprisingly few green types - or is that my middle-age stereotyping expectations? Some Labour supporters - rather fewer actually expressing enthusiasm for the government - and quite a decent smattering of Lib Dems and others not yet committed to a party…
But we absolutely have to do this on merit - sticking them on the programme with four professionals is a huge ask. So we distribute the shortlist to the student producers, some now more absorbed in exams than programme planning - more technical and logistic hitches - but they start e-mailing back their views. Thankfully broadly in line with ours.
Those who almost made the final cut included a brace of Cambridge undergraduates and ranged from an Iraqi medical student to a single-mother voluntary worker.
Anyway, having got the shortlist down to four, we're now organising our own mini "Politics Idol" - run a dummy Question Time (with in the chair of course) putting these finalists through their paces. The aim is for one of them then to join the normal-ish Question Time panel, next Thursday and spout their views to the nation on whatever subjects come up.
I say "aim" - frankly, that's my weasel-word way of saying that if, when it comes to the crunch, none of them are quite up to it, then I still reserve the right to protect ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One from a duff programme - and abandon the whole idea. I keep reassuring myself that it won't come to that and that taking risks (reasonable ones) is part and parcel of keeping a long-running and treasured flagship fresh and relevant.
Ask me again a week from now.
So, assuming it goes to plan and looking on the bright side, expect to see one of the following on the last Question Time of the series, on July 6th:
• Gareth Davies, a 22 year old from Leeds, who, uniquely among entrants, managed, simultaneously, to walk and talk into his mobile phone - and make good sense.
• Louise Box, who's 21, just moving to Manchester and works in retail. One of her hobbies is shouting at the telly every Thursday night.
• Matt Pollard, a student at Exeter who once got to ask a question from the audience on Question Time.
• Sarah Hajibagheri, an 18 year old gap year student who's just had a stint working for an "inspirational" MEP.
Good luck to them and to the Question Time student producers - and I must remember to send heartfelt appreciation to the regular Question Time team, who put a huge amount of extra work into this.
Ric Bailey is deputy head of political programmes
- Ceri Thomas
- 30 Jun 06, 10:34 AM
It was e-mail number 1,226 on the same topic which finally did it for me.
The other 1,225 had pictures attached (dogs in prams, dogs in clothes) but this one contained a new feature: a link to the dog's own website. Our fault of course - we were doing an item (listen here) about dogs' names and we'd asked for photographs - but the size of the response was still surprising, almost shocking. Have you really (dear listener) been poised next to your laptop all these years, digital camera at the ready, just waiting for the moment when you could give Thompson the Chocolate Labrador or Colin the Spinoni their fifteen minutes? That's the way it looks.
I'm being slightly unfair to us. We always knew that the dog item would have 'legs', but it's very hard to predict how much any of the subjects we cover will grab the audience.
E-mails are one way for us to judge whether or not we're hitting the right notes (and, incidentally, there've been another 30 to do with dogs since I started writing this). Like all the other means at our disposal - focus groups, surveys, and so on - they're imperfect but they serve a purpose.
And sometimes feedback comes in less subtle forms: the high-profile politician who phoned this week to say why he "loathes the programme"; the letter to a presenter which opened with the novel greeting, Dear C***. But if there was a prize for best feedback this week, I'd award it to the cabbie who was giving me a lift early one morning.
I asked if he'd mind putting Today on the radio, and he confessed he'd never listened to it. After all of three minutes he started chuckling to himself, and a couple of minutes later he turned to me. "Gawd, mate," he said, "this is dreadful, isn't it?". And then quietly, under his breath, "Absolutely minging."
Ceri Thomas is editor of the Today programme
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