@Society of Editors - Simon Bucks: Grow membership in broadcast and online | Fleet Street 2.0

@Society of Editors - Simon Bucks: Grow membership in broadcast and online

Posted by Martin Stabe on 6 November 2007 at 11:52
Tags: Sky, Sky News, Sky.com, Society of Editors, Society of Editors, skynews

The new president of the Society of Editors, Sky News associate editor for online, Simon Bucks, has delivered his inaugural address, the last event of the conference.

Bucks, who earlier this year publically recanted his skepticism about the value of interactive journalism, says online has “most of the fun of television, although you don’t have to dress up for it.”

“I’m a fan of news on every platform, not least print,” he stresses (before taking a quote from Wired magazine just a bit out of context when he says: “newspapers are silent, highly portable, require neither power source nor arcane commands, and don’t crash or get infected”).

Bucks says he wants is presidency to be marked by growth in membership, particularly in broadcast and online.

If you need to justify your Society subs, Bucks says, just point to the successful campaign against the Freedom of Information and coroners’ courts changes, which the Society won. It also had an important role in fighting the IRB’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup.

He warns that the next media freedom threat in the coming year might be the European Commission’s efforts to regulate online video. The directive on audiovisual services, formerly Television Without Frontiers, would make any linear TV offering over IP subject to regulation. Neither Ofcom or the Culture minister are seeking to regulate the web, but Tony Blair had before leaving office, suggested that convergence could mean a uniform system of media regulation.

Expect a session on that next year.