Archives for November 2011

Anyone who uses the BBC homepage may find this post by BBC Future Media's James Thornett interesting: it describes how the page is changing, and why.

PS For the avoidance of doubt, James' blog is about changes to the main BBC homepage at www.bbc.co.uk not the BBC News homepage which is here.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

A few weeks ago we announced that we were making some improvements to the BBC's Weather website, including a clearer, more focused design of the homepage.

Since then we've been running a "beta" version of the new site to allow us to try out these new features and listen to your comments and feedback. Following that successful trial period, I'm pleased to say that we are launching the new weather site today.

We've had a great response to the beta site which has received around 230,000 visitors per week and I'd like to thank those who have taken the time to try it out and give us your comments. These figures are very similar to the numbers of people who have tested beta versions of the new iPlayer site and the BBC homepage, which shows how many of you value the weather website.

We've worked hard to improve the functionality of the site, whilst retaining all of the more detailed forecast information such as humidity, pressure and visibility. The majority of the feedback we've received has been very positive with many users saying that a variety of information can be accessed at a glance, they like the design and perhaps most importantly, the website is clearer and easier to use.

I've blogged about the key improvements to the site previously but as a reminder these are:

• A more focused and clear homepage design giving instant access to a five day forecast and a video forecast.
• Easily personalised forecast favourites which allow you to save a range of locations to appear in the drop down menu.
• Improved navigation across the site allowing more editorial content, including audience pictures on the homepage.

We've listened to your suggestions while the beta site has been live and also implemented some changes that were already in the pipeline such as the print function and the full UK forecast map.

Although we're launching the new site officially today, we'll continue to look at ways to improve the site and there are aspects that we'll continue to work on over the coming weeks. These include making the maps load more smoothly and developing a mobile version of the site.

In addition to these improvements, we want to hear your views on the new site and we'll continue to monitor your feedback, we're using the #bbcweather hashtag on Twitter to group conversation, or you can comment below.

Liz Howell is head of BBC Weather.

Today the BBC Trust publishes its findings into an investigation of the funding arrangements for certain programmes broadcast on our international commercial television news channel, BBC World News.

The Trust has concluded that 15 programmes broadcast in our weekend schedule breached the BBC's editorial or sponsorship guidelines.

The programmes concerned were acquired by the channel at low or nominal cost, and around half of them were funded or partly funded by charities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or other similar groups.

The Trust found breaches of guidelines in seven programmes relating to conflict of interest; the promotion of a sponsor's activities; the prohibition of sponsorship for current affairs programming; and the way in which funding was credited to ensure transparency for viewers.

The remaining breaches concerned programmes made for the BBC by an independent production company, which failed to disclose to us that it had a financial relationship with the Malaysian government, while producing programmes with a "heavy focus" on Malaysia.

The Trust classifies this as "serious breaches" of its guidelines, and BBC World News fully accepts their findings. We share the Trust's view that the integrity and independence of the BBC's editorial decisions is of paramount importance. We welcome their conclusion that none of the programmes breached requirements for impartiality. But nevertheless, we are determined to learn the lessons from what has gone wrong.

So how did it happen? There is no single, or simple answer. The cases involving Malaysia were serious because we transmitted programmes without being made aware of a conflict of interest by the supplying production company. Eight programmes were broadcast between 2009 and July 2011, with references to Malaysia. Following reports in the Independent newspaper, the production company admitted to the BBC that it represented the Malaysian government through another division of its activities. We didn't know this at the time, and we have now terminated our relationship with this company.

A second conflict of interest arose in another programme about carbon trading, where an association was found between an organisation featured in the programme, and a company which funded the programme production. This conflict was not declared to us at the time of transmission - had we known, we would not have broadcast it.

In the remaining cases examined by the Trust, the issues were primarily related to how we interpreted editorial or sponsorship guidelines. This, again, is something we take very seriously, and today we are announcing new procedures which take full account of the findings.

The Trust did say that no BBC staff had intended to breach guidelines, but there seemed to be a lack of knowledge or genuine confusion about the relevant guidance. Clearly we need to tighten our procedures so that it doesn't happen again.

As a result, we are taking steps to tighten our list of supplying production companies, and to put in place a more rigorous process to approve programme commissions - including further checks on any potential conflicts of interest. We have also undertaken no longer to commission or acquire programmes sponsored by non-commercial organisations, and have stopped taking programmes at low nominal cost. We have re-affirmed that sponsored programming will only be allowed in non-news and current affairs genres, and we will act on the Trust's guidance to take a "strictly prudential view" of what amounts to sponsorship.

These are complex cases, but the principles underlying them are simple. We must not damage the audience's trust in what we broadcast. We know we have some hard work to do to make up for this, but we are determined to do so.

Richard Porter is controller of English at BBC Global News.

Some of you might have come across a test page for something we're working on for the BBC News website and I wanted briefly to explain what we're up to.

During the past few years the "live page" format has become a regular feature of our coverage around big breaking stories. We've used it for stories such as the UK general election, Egypt, the Japan earthquake, Libya and the Budget for example.

These live pages have allowed us to pull together content related to a big story fast, all in one place, and to tell the story as it unfolds. They are constantly updated with a mixture that includes first-hand reporting from our correspondents, tweets, insights from users, clips from BBC interviews, stills, live and recorded video, links out to other sources and to all the key relevant BBC coverage as it is published - graphics, analysis, and related articles. (So we are still writing the stories and articles, but summarising and linking to them as another way for people to find, scan and share the story. And in addition, the live page when it works well allows a wider range of points to be surfaced, more quickly).

The format has been a big success in terms of usage, so we're thinking about what more we could do with it. We think the pages are not necessarily just about breaking news - they are also a real-time showcase of the best of what we (and others) are doing, so we've been wondering whether - and how - we could make this approach work as a regular feature on the site rather than just something we use around big stories. What would it take and how would we need to organise ourselves differently in the newsroom and beyond?

So we're currently trying some of this out - you can see an example here. This isn't the first trial we've done, and it won't be the last, and the approach and format may change, because these tests allow us to get valuable insights into how we might develop it, what works and what doesn't.

One of the key things we are looking at right now as part of the trial is how to bring our social media output and our news reporting - and the teams that do them - even closer together. In fact BBC News Social Media Editor Chris Hamilton recently introduced some related changes, including a reduction in the use of automated headline feeds on our core Twitter accounts @BBCNews and @BBCWorld.

Do let us know what you think - what would you like to see? How do you think the format would work best? I'll return with updates here before long.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

The web has created many challenges for news organisations but also lots of opportunities for telling stories in new and innovative ways. In particular it allows us to bring together multimedia combinations of text, graphics, video and audio, and gives us new ways to visualise information and create interactive graphics.

At the BBC News website, most of this work is handled by a combined team of journalists, developers and designers (we call them the 'Specials' team) and they produce content such as the recent and popular World at seven billion and 9/11 memories from the wreckage..

Now, as a result of a fellowship scheme we are taking part in called the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership, we're looking forward to welcoming a new member to the team. If you are interested to know more, Senior Product Manager Andrew Leimdorfer explains:

The project, set up by the web browser provider Mozilla and the not-for-profit Knight Foundation, has created a series of fellowships for aspiring tech-savvy journalists or news-savvy technologists (depending on your preference). The Partnership ran a series of "challenges" to select five fellows, who will each spend a year working in "one of the world's most exciting newsrooms".

Working as a partner in this project fits perfectly with the remit of our team. The project's goals are "to advance the best values of both journalism and the open web by continuous innovation. Working together, technologists and journalists can accomplish great things". The BBC News Specials team has a particular focus on this kind of collaborative approach to the production of digital news content for the BBC. In our corner of the newsroom, journalists, designers and developers work side by side on finding new and interesting ways to enhance our storytelling.

Choosing the five successful fellows (who will also be based at The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Boston.com and Zeit Online) has been an extremely creative three-stage process, which started with a call for entries on the following themes:

• Unlocking video: How can new web video tools transform news storytelling?
• Beyond Comment Threads: How can we reinvent online news discussions?
• People-Powered News: What's the next killer app for news?

Hundreds of ideas were submitted and assessed. The best sixty proposals then took part in a Learning Lab in July where participants refined, combined, and developed their ideas from the challenge.

In October this year the twenty "finalists" attended a really inspiring four-day "Hackfest" in Berlin. This was where the partner news organisations got to meet the prospective fellows and see this group of outstanding journalism innovators in action. It was also a great opportunity for the partner news organisations to get to know each other and begin to open channels of communication about the work we do and how shared approaches to technology might be mutually beneficial.

Deciding alongside the partners which of these candidates should be placed in each news organisation was huge challenge due to the calibre of entries, but also extremely enjoyable task. Everyone taking part in Berlin displayed levels of enthusiasm, creativity and skill that would benefit a newsroom.

The final five names are being announced 4 November at this year's Mozilla Festival, which has a theme of "Media freedom and the Web" and takes place at Ravensbourne College in London.

We'll be there with our new fellow to talk about how this year's MoJo program has gone so far and how we think the project will develop. We certainly have high hopes for the collaboration as we begin the next phase, working with our fellow to continue inventing the future of news.

Update, 09:38, 9 November: Andrew Leimdorfer: I think it’s worth mentioning a couple of points that people have brought up in the comments.

With regard to the BBC’s policy on commenting. The subject of the original challenge set by Mozilla - Beyond Comment Threads: How can we reinvent online news discussions? is not a subject the BBC proposed. Although it’s obviously of interest to many organisations publishing news (the BBC included), this won’t be where our fellow will be focussed as it isn’t something that sits within the remit of the Specials team, whose focus is on interactive content.

Similarly with regards to the comments made by JunkkMale and just-passing-through, the news partners working with the Knight-Mozilla fellowship were not chosen by the BBC. The BBC is happy to be working with the other four news partners, including the Guardian, but this is not a relationship we specifically fostered in favour of any other. Mozilla are very keen to attract other news organisations to the fellowship in the future and one of the main aims of the project is for the partners involved to release code to open source libraries where it could be used by anyone.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

Tonight the BBC has apologised to the Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. For those of you who haven't seen it, here's what we said:

"Last month we carried some reports from the Conservative Party conference which fell below our usual standards. Our reports gave a misleading impression that Andrew Tyrie MP had been influenced by a Downing Street official to say something he did not believe to be true. We have apologised to Mr Tyrie for these reports".

Mr Tyrie gave this response within the past hour:

"I am extremely grateful to the BBC, and for doing this without needing to make a formal complaint. They have accepted that they made a mistake - we all make them - and apologised. As far as I'm concerned that is an end of the matter".

Before the Conservative conference Mr Tyrie had criticised the government's long-term economic growth strategy as being, in parts, "incoherent and inconsistent".

After the chancellor's conference speech he spoke warmly about it.

Steve Hilton put his arm round Andrew Tyrie's shoulder as they held their conversation

The BBC aired footage on that day which appeared to show Mr Tyrie being led away for a private chat by Steve Hilton - one of the prime minister's closest advisers. He was then asked by the BBC's James Landale whether he had been "nobbled" and responded “I think you know me well enough, James, to know the unlikelihood of that.”

Some of our reporting suggested that this encounter was evidence that he had changed his view as the result of pressure from Downing Street.

After Andrew Tyrie contacted us some days later, however, it became clear that he had indicated to the BBC before meeting Steve Hilton - and having heard the chancellor's speech - that he welcomed George Osborne's policy announcements.

He said the chancellor had responded positively to his critique and moved substantially in his direction on several issues such as re-examining the employment tribunal system and re-assessing the government's unilateral targets for reducing carbon emissions. And it was Mr Tyrie and not Mr Hilton who had initiated the conversation which had been caught on camera.

The BBC regrets that the footage was not shown in its proper context which happened as a result of it being broadcast and commented upon swiftly and before some extra editorial checks could be made.

The most widely viewed reports of the incident on the BBC's News at Six and Ten did not assert that Mr Tyrie had changed his views under pressure - they asked whether Mr Tyrie had changed his mind about the government's economic policy because of the chancellor's speech or because of his meeting with a senior Number 10 official.

Nevertheless we regret that mistakes took place and that the footage was not shown across the BBC in its proper context. There was never any intention to deceive our audience but we now accept that the impression created by the coverage taken as a whole was misleading. As a result we have decided to take the unusual step of apologising on air. We are glad that Mr Tyrie, for his part, accepts our apology.
Our journalistic reputation is built on trust and on this occasion, we got it wrong and we have apologised for that.

Gavin Allen is editor, BBC Political News.

In the next few days, we will be making some changes to the way we present news from Asia on the website.

 

Until now, our coverage of the region has been split into two: Asia Pacific and South Asia. However many users have told us that they do not understand these labels and do not always know where to go for news they want from the region.

We think we will be better serving audiences in the UK and elsewhere with a single Asia index - a home for news stories from and about the region as well as features and analysis from our correspondents and content from some of our unrivalled language services.

For those who want specific news and analysis from the world's two most populous countries, we will also create named country pages: first China and, later in the month, India. 

The change in layout is accompanied by increased coverage in the region as a whole, allowing us to report even more stories from a region that stretches from Afghanistan to Japan and Pakistan to Australia.

We will be able to bring you more of the news as it breaks in the region, with greater speed and in greater depth than ever before.

In the coming days users in Asia can also expect some further changes to the bbc.com homepage which will deepen the breadth of our coverage with more bespoke content for audiences in different regions of Asia.

We hope these changes will make our site more relevant to users in Asia, and make it easier for audiences in the UK and the rest of the world to understand this vital region.

UPDATE 4 NOVEMBER 2011: Thank you for your comments on this post. I wanted to reply to some of your questions.

Australia and New Zealand are not part of the Asian continent, but they are part of the Pacific region and increasingly look towards Asia. We think, therefore, this is the best regional index for stories from the two countries.

To Piet Boon and others who asked about country-specific pages: it's under review, we may be offering more in the future.

Jake Smith - please rest assured, we are not reducing coverage or restricting it to the larger countries. We will have more articles from across the region. The difference is that the Asia page will be updated more often.

We are also looking at adding South Asia and Asia Pacific sections to the new Asia index.

Nathalie Malinarich is world editor of the BBC News website.