Channel 4 search the social-networks, and so should you!

Posted by Dave Lee on 11 May 2008 at 15:04
Tags: Online, Student Journalism, Television, facebook

A little while ago I joined a very important cause. Yup, the ‘Put Dr Pepper in all UK McDonalds‘ campaign is one I feel very strongly about. I, along with (at last count) 976 others, are pressuring McDonald’s relentlessly to give in to our demands.

Anyway, I’m not here to promote the group — JOIN IT! — but it just goes to show how Facebook, with all its faults, can be a great source for journalists.

Take Cathy, for example. She works for Channel 4. Or rather she works for a company that has been contracted by Channel 4 to make a documentary. One of their classics, no doubt, with those really horrid Ronseal-ish titles like “The man with ten arms and a head that is swollen a bit”.

The documentary is about fast food, and people who love it. But, rather than spend ages dragging herself to every grease-factory in Britain, Cathy has gone for the jugular: our Dr Pepper group. Right now she is doing the rounds on Facebook with this message:

“Hi everyone, I’ve joined this group as perhaps some of you will be interested in a documentary we are making for Channel 4. It’s a film about people who are obsessed with fast food! I am looking for people who LOVE fast food.

We’re talking true love here - Perhaps you need your McMuffin fix to get going in the morning? Or you are planning to have your wedding reception at Pizza Hut? Or have you only eaten at KFC for the past two years?

The programme will take a light-hearted look at how fast food has won a place in the hearts of the nation, and reveal this affection through the eyes of the people who love it the most!

If you are passionate about KFC, McDonalds, Burger King or Pizza Hut, or have any other fast food obsessions, get in touch and I can tell you a bit more about it. If you send me a message I can reply, or if you want to leave your phone number I’ll give you a call.

Thankyou!
Cathyx”

I’m sure Dickens* would spin in his grave at the method, but it’s hard to deny its usefulness.

Students are Facebook professionals. Student journalists, then, should be all over the social-networks like wasps on your Cornetto. Any other examples of the mainstream media embracing the power of new media to get to the people?

(* Did you know he was a journalist too? I didn’t until this week. Interesting stuff!)

BBC looking for trainees

Posted by Dave Lee on 11 March 2008 at 16:16
Tags: Courses, Television

This may be of interest for anyone who fancies a bit of telly work with the BBC.

YouTube Live will revolutionise student journalism

Posted by Dave Lee on 5 March 2008 at 09:25
Tags: Courses, Online, Student Journalism, Television

We haven’t touched much on student television journalism on this blog yet, and for good reason.

There isn’t any. Or rather, there isn’t any we can watch and enjoy. Plenty of j-schools have TV modules – some even have dedicated TV courses – but the public enjoyment of this work is often restricted to the campus it is created on.

Which is all well and good, but it puts student broadcast journalists at a distinct disadvantage over their print counterparts. Aspiring TV journalists are not google-friendly. You’d never stumble across a brilliant piece-to-camera by accident. No, you would need to consciously go and download it.

And even if you got to that point, what university has the resources to be hosting all this multimedia? Not to mention the fact that many of the ‘men upstairs’ in British universities quiver in their leather chairs at the very thought of letting student journalists run riot under the university’s good name.

Is that all about to change? Yes! It certainly is! Woo hoo! Hip hip hooray! And so on. With this single announcement, student TV journalism has taken a whole new meaning.

Why? Because soon, this year, we’ll be able to broadcast LIVE using YouTube. To an audience of… millions?

Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. To go from broadcasting to your classmates and your tutor to speaking to, for example, the local community, is pretty exciting.

Those of us who are lucky enough to have a radio station on-campus will know how much you raise your game when it’s likely to be heard by someone who isn’t just your mate. Knowing your content is up for both legal and critical scrutiny is always healthy as well, as your skills will subconsciously become stronger and the real stresses of journalism will emerge. As will the adrenaline rush, of course.

It’s time, then, for TV tutors out there to ask themselves: “How can we incorporate this?”

Exact details of YouTube’s plans are not clear, but it’s fairly likely that users will be able to embed the live video into their own site, much like the way we do with normal clips now.

If convergence is the way forward – which, let’s face it, it is – then how better to teach multimedia journalism than to create a website that is rammed full of text, images, audio, multimedia and now, gloriously, live television. Every j-school has the resources to do all of this, which means every j-school should do it, no excuses.

When it comes to inspiring great, high quality work, you really can’t get much better than this.

3 comments

Clough in the thick of it at Lincoln City

Posted by Dave Lee on 16 February 2008 at 17:55
Tags: Lincoln University, Student Journalism, Television

I’m not going to use this blog to promote my friends, but I thought I’d make an exception to share this account from Dan Clough about how he found himself in the middle of one of the biggest stories of the year here in sleepy Lincoln:

[T]he call comes through from the Lincolshire Echo. Their footage hasn’t worked, can they have mine? After agreeing it with my tutor John Cafferkey and the club itself I get to work on putting the entire conference into a working format with usable sound quality for the Echo’s website. It’s done, late, but done. I take it to the Echo, sports editor John Pakey is delighted until ten minutes later when he rings to explain the sound isn’t working on the DVD! Damn it!

If that’s not hands on experience, I’m not sure what is!