Media News You Need to Know
BBC cuts dressed as digital first; Google accused of downgrading news in search; more on the Russian attacks on Bellingcat, effectively permitted by UK govt; a handful of must-read other media stories
A metaphor for optimism: Image by Peter Bale
More upheaval at the BBC with cuts disguised as going digital-first
While I totally understand the immense budgetary and political pressure the BBC is under — and that they are totally related since the government effectively sets its budget and has used that leverage against the organisation for years — the latest cuts put at risk its strengths and its role as British soft power.
It is one of the world’s most-respected media organisations (though that is at risk) and is the definition of what a publicly owned corporation can do — not a state-run, not state-owned, but publicly owned. It’s also true that its current funding model linked to the quant UK system of television licence fees is dying fast both practically and morally. However, the response so far from multiple Conservative governments has been to squeeze and show who’s boss — with the budget and also by appointing stooges to lead the BBC board and serve in critical board posts in an entirely unethical and dodgy fashion.
The latest evidence of the squeeze - in a sense more symbolic than real — was to select the team to present a new combined BBC television news service that will draw together the traditional BBC World Service and the domestic BBC News stream. Out went established and in some cases hugely experienced field reporters like Ben Brown. The group that remains also has huge talent in it — especially in my mind one of the bravest foreign correspondents, Afghan-Australian Yalda Hakim.
One of those not included in the lineup ( was Martine Croxall who was suspended from appearing on air after a slightly unfortunate turn of phrase when describing the imminent departure of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying “Well this is all very exciting isn’t it…Am I allowed to be this gleeful? Well I am.”
BBC Director General Tim Davie has said he’s trying to save £285m a year by creating a “digital-first” organisation, part budget cuts almost twice that level. While a digital-first strategy is probably to be applauded, a lot can be lost on the transition. This is also the week that the BBC closed its Arabic radio service after 85 years.
With its chairman embroiled in an investigation over making connections for impecunious Boris to get an £800,000 loan from a distant cousin (thus able to avoid some of the rules of disclosure), and one of its board members both a former BBC news reporter-turned-spokesman for a Conservative PM, it’s not a good look.
Google accused of downgrading news in general Search
A study commissioned by the UK Press Gazette suggests big drops in the visibility news has in general Google search queries — that is outside hitting the News button or other surfaces such as Google Discover or the Top News feature.
The report on the study by search engine optimisation research firm Sistrix suggested that 45 out of the 68 news domains ranked worse in UK Google search results in January of this year compared to the same month in 2022, Press Gazette reported.
I have an unusually snappy dog in this fight having recently written and published a 10,000-word report on how newsrooms can do better in Google Search, complete with case studies of best practices, and advice from Google on how to make news work online — mostly about writing high-quality stories that appear on well-designed and honest websites. So, intrigued and I also know the Sistrix report will feed into a publisher narrative — extensively covered in my report for d — that Google is somehow penalising news publishers or favouring its own products.
Revealed: UK government helped sanctioned Putin ally sue British journalist
Not a new story but an excellent version of it and an important topic. The use of suits to limit journalistic activity — sometimes just by making it expensive and difficult — is an old tactic but some jurisdictions are better than others.
The idea that someone with no reputation as such to protect as Yevgeny Prigozhin can use British law and lawyers — and it would appear gain concessions from the government over sanctions — is outrageous.
OpenDemocracy, which I have historically thought of as more of a free speech and democracy advocacy group has over the years built up a remarkable journalistic bench and done stories that some in the rest of the traditional media have been afraid to do or unaware of the implications of them. Defending Bellingcat is a worthwhile thing to do. The fact that Moscow and its proxies in the media and social media warriors hate Bellingcat and portray it as some sort of US and Nato-funded organisation is more of an indication of the quality of its work than the truth of those claims.
The boom — or glut — in streaming documentaries has sparked a reckoning among filmmakers and their subjects, is an interesting take in Vulture on the increasing dramatisation of documentaries and the risk that raises for facts.
Bad economics at the BBC enabled Tory austerity and its aftermath – and it knows as much, is a not-bad analysis of why journalists get economics so wrong so consistently. I suspect this is true not just in the BBC but it is because of that irritating determination to simplify things into the “pound in your pocket” nonsense.
ChatGPT isn’t a great leap forward, it’s an expensive deal with the devil, by John Naughton in The Observer is an excellent explanation of what ChatGPT is and is not. I actually found an alternative the other day — which I believe uses some of the same corpus as ChatGPT but to me was a much better experience journalistically.
Gannett ends online comments for a majority of its news sites, journalism news site Poynter reports, adding: ‘Previously, Gannett journalists moderated online comment spaces. ‘Changes in staffing’ have made that difficult.’ While this is understandable and places I’ve worked like CNN did it long ago because the comments were too often awful, hateful, and defamatory, the risk is it closes off space for listening to readers.
Thanks for getting to the end of the latest edition of this newsletter now that I have moved it over from Revue. I am grateful and slightly embarrassed by those of you who have pledged future funding. For now, I am finding my way, but I am grateful for the enthusiasm and for any feedback on what I can usefully do with this.