BBC

Here's the audio recording of a conversation held via skype this afternnoon between the postgrad newsroom and BBC TV Centre. Have a listen to the BBC World News Editor Jon Williams, to hear just what it takes to make it as a correspondent for BBC World News. 

I will be calling a meeting in a few days for the selection of students who said they would take up our offer of help to secure a BBC placement.

In the meantime if this applies to you, would you please start thinking about choosing where and when you want to go. A good time to go might be after the exams, or later in the summer. Don't choose during the Easter holidays as many students want to go then. Your preferred option may be a regional newsroom near your home. 

You will need to provide the BBC three choices and two alternative dates. 

As the old mediums of journalism falter and ‘citizen’, un-professional, social networking journalism grows should we not try something different? Is it not time for media companies to try a new approach to counter the decrease in sales of print journalism. The Independent company launched the I paper in late 2010 to try to increase its readership and increase its revenue.

With Twitter emerging as great source for rapid and concise news, many of the nation's journalists have taken to the social networking site and now use it both an outlet aswell as a source for information.  I found an interesting piece by BBC reporter, Philippa Thomas on how Twitter transformed her coverage of the Stephen Lawrence trial. 

Read here

Toilet trips are about to reach a new level as games consoles are installed in men's toilets to combat 'urinal boredom'.

British Journalism Review asked me to argue the case against the BBC's decision to move half of network television spending and 40% of radio to Salford. They invited me to oppose Mark Thompson's argument that forcing staff and resources out of the capital will improve programmes. In fact I repudiate the DG's claim that the Salford move has anything to do with standards or quality. Read my essay  debate, disagree. 

Stephen Maunder, a postgraduate research student in the Centre for Journalism, is on a work experience placement at the BBC. You can read his  first article here.  

BBC journalists have demonstrated yet again that they have no idea as to how the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) works. Reporting on the UK Supreme Court ruling last year that sex offenders have the “human right” to apply to have their names taken off the Sex Offenders register, BBC Breakfast News said that the government “absolutely have to do what the Supreme Court tells them” (16th February 2011). M’Lord Prescott spouted similar nonsense last week on the issue of giving prisoners the right to vote in elections.

The BBC's decision to move network programmes from London to the regions has long been controversial inside the corporation. Last week it leapt onto the national news agenda when Ed Havard, editor of Question Time, resigned rather than move to Glasgow, and David Dimbleby, the programme's presenter, made clear his displeasure. Then the Mail on Sunday added fire to the flames with a splash revealing that a senior figure involved in the exodus is commuting to Salford Quays at public expense...from his home in Kentucky. Armed with its exclusive the MoS  invited me to contribute to the debate. You can read my views here (you have to scroll down below the news story). What do you think?