3 thoughts on “#bbcsms: what I learned about ego, opinion, art and commerce”

  1. You make some great reflections on the day, especially regarding ‘mainstream’ vs start-ups/innovation, which was, after that particular session, a consistent topic of the day.

    I attended the Friday of the BBC event coming from Southampton University’s Student Union as one of our media enthusiasts, and the discussions on hyperlocal journalism was extremely interesting coming from my viewpoint; I too was disappointed Will was not brought into the conversation as much as hoped.

    What did disappoint me from the day was the lack of a “catalyst” for collaboration, which was one of the aims the event was created for. I was hoping to bring such a catalyst back into student news, with an eye to collaborating with the local organisations around us. Too much time was spent defining the differences, rather than building on the similarities, of independant vs mainstream media, as you put it.

    What also irked me somewhat was the lack of focus on domestic news compared to international news. Now I realise the importance of Twitter is greatly increased in regards to international news, but I was disappointed not to hear about the British state of things until Claire herself put forward the question “How would we respond to a natural disaster in Britain today?”

    Your last point is a valid, and reflects what I took out of the day; innovators and non-mainstream thinkers are looking to be involved, traditional outlets are sitting back and waiting for invites. They should be the ones sending out the innovations.

    With capability comes responsibility, I believe was one of the finer quotes of the day.

  2. @JMChadd Your last couple of paragraphs are spot on. Looking at things like the Guardian hack days, it’s easy sometimes to think traditional outlets are innovating hard, but hearing from people like Mark Rock and Mark Little really turns that view upside down. And I’m a big fan of that quote.

    I have to say that I did get some catalysts for change from the day – though not all from the sessions themselves. The most valuable parts for me were the opportunities to compare notes with people from different disciplines within journalism and people with different specialities – the folks I described as “Venn diagrams” in the post. It sometimes feels that we’re revisiting well-trodden ground, but there are always people bringing in something new, and the presence of innovators peripheral to the field was a good thing, I reckon.

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