- Peter Horrocks
- 15 Oct 07, 05:05 PM
We've announced today that George Alagiah will, from November, be the sole presenter of the Six O'Clock News bulletin. We've decided to make the change following Natasha Kaplinsky's departure from the 蜜芽传媒 last week.
George is, obviously, a hugely well-known and well-respected journalist, who brings vast amounts of experience and tremendous versatility to the programme - he's as comfortable with reporting from scenes of flood devastation as he is reporting from Downing Street. The six o'clock bulletin has a special remit to report fully stories from around the UK, and we'll be working closely with George to fulfil this objective.
Additionally, it's fair to say that the move allows us to make better use of our resources - but not at the cost of detracting from the core values of the bulletin.
Peter Horrocks is head of 蜜芽传媒 Newsroom
- Stephen Mitchell
- 15 Oct 07, 01:39 PM
Listeners to 蜜芽传媒 radio might have noticed a subtle change in the way we are announcing our news bulletins. It might be useful for me to explain what we have done and why we've done it.
For instance, until last week, a bulletin on Radio Four would be introduced with the words: 鈥溍垩看 Radio Four, the news at two o'clock." It would conclude with the words "蜜芽传媒 Radio Four news". Now, however, we have changed the script slightly and you will hear "蜜芽传媒 News on Radio Four, it's two o'clock" at the start of the bulletin and "蜜芽传媒 News for Radio Four" at the end. Other networks have similar changes which we have worked out after talking to the different channels.
These are small changes, but we know that the familiar rhythms of our broadcasts are valued by listeners. We don't change them lightly. The reason we've chosen to do it here is that the audience is now consuming 蜜芽传媒 News across a wider variety of channels and platforms than ever before. The advice we were given was that we needed to simplify the identity of 蜜芽传媒 News, given that it's such a trusted and central part of what the 蜜芽传媒 offers, and to make it as recognisable as possible across all the services we offer.
When a bulletin has been produced by 蜜芽传媒 News, it's sensible and reasonable to tell people it's been produced by 蜜芽传媒 News. We did audience research into the new script, and people told us they were quite happy with this sort of wording. They felt it added authority and credibility to our output.
Stephen Mitchell is head of multi-media programmes
- Kevin Marsh
- 15 Oct 07, 12:54 PM
is another step along the long and rocky path of bringing the laws of libel in line with the laws of common sense.
McLagan, a former 蜜芽传媒 journalist, had written a about police corruption. A former policeman who McLagan names in the book had successfully sued the author and his publisher for libel. Yesterday, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and ruled instead in McLagan and his publisher's favour.
The case hinged on something called the 鈥楻eynolds Defence鈥 - a phrase on the lips of most journalists and some lawyers but not necessarily a subject of nightly conversation in the Dog and Duck.
Briefly, the Reynolds Defence is named after a defence raised in the late 1990s by Times Newspapers after the Sunday Times published an article about the former Irish prime minister, Albert Reynolds. Mr Reynolds sued, arguing the allegations in the article were not true and were defamatory. The newspaper argued that the allegations it published were serious and that it had a duty to publish them. They were, it argued, made in the public interest and after they'd exercised all reasonable care in checking. Even if the allegations were not true, they argued they should have been able to report them and be legally protected by 'qualified privilege'.
In 2001, the Law Lords decided that the Reynolds Defence was a valid one, subject to certain conditions. Crucially, for the defence to be successful the journalism had to be careful, its tone sober, its subject important and of urgent public interest. In other words, it had to be good journalism. It was not a charter for publishing tittle-tattle.
It was a defence that the Wall Street Journal raised when it was sued by a Saudi Arabian businessman Abdullah Latif Jameel and his companies. Initially the defence failed - but was finally successful on appeal to the House of Lords. In their judgement, the Law Lords seemed to move the law even further in defence of careful, sober, investigative journalism, also recognising the principle that journalists work in a pressured atmosphere in which the life of a news story is limited.
It is a stance that recognises the essential disadvantage an investigative journalist faces in breaking a story that someone, somewhere would rather was not broken. The libel laws in the UK notoriously favour those with the money or motive to make life tough for a journalist bent on disclosure and a public bent on transparency. The late Robert Maxwell was ruthless in his use, and threats, of libel actions to deter journalists from printing what we now know was the truth about him and his business methods.
An important feature of the McLagan ruling, though, is that the Reynolds Defence has now been extended to longer-form and longer-term journalism, and is not now limited - as some assumed after the Wall Street Journal case - to the rough and tumble of daily news.
The key point, though, remains; that this defence is only available to careful, considered journalism. As one of the , criticising the judge in the original case: 鈥淚 do not see in this judgment any sufficient allowance made for McLagan's honesty, his expertise in the subject, his careful research, and his painstaking evaluation of a mass of material.鈥
"Honesty", "expertise", "careful", "painstaking" all describe Graeme McLagan's methods precisely - I know, I worked closely with him in the 1980s on documentaries about the IRA, spying and the Official Secrets Act; a fact checked and corroborated only twice or three times was still, in his view, unverified. Yesterday's ruling now - properly - offers a greater degree of protection to journalists who fit that description.
Kevin Marsh is editor of the 蜜芽传媒 College of Journalism
- Alistair Burnett
- 15 Oct 07, 09:49 AM
So Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the for their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change.
This has refocused attention on Mr Gore's Oscar winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, which has been called by its critics a 'shockumentary'. It was in the earlier this week when a High Court judge ruled that the film should only be shown in schools with accompanying guidance notes to balance what the judge called Mr Gore's "one-sided views". My colleague Craig Oliver has blogged on this.
We led the programme with the story on Wednesday because it was clearly an interesting development in the arguments over climate change and man's role in causing it. But some of our listeners thought some 蜜芽传媒 headlines were misleading. We opened the programme by saying:
"The film made by the former American vice president Al Gore about climate change - which the government wants to be shown in thousands of British schools - has been strongly criticised by a High Court judge for making exaggerated and alarmist claims."
When we introduced the item after our news bulletin we said:
"Al Gore got it wrong on global warming. So said a High Court judge today, who ruled that his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, contains at least nine errors."
It's this that some listeners took issue with - they pointed out that boiling what the judge said to 鈥淎l Gore got it wrong鈥 is misleading because the judge didn't say the nine claims he criticised were necessarily wrong - they were controversial and not part of the scientific consensus (my colleague Roger Harrabin goes into on this).
Some of the papers the next day simplified it even further, 鈥淎l Gore's climate film's nine untruths鈥 or 鈥淕ore's green film is alarmist, says Hight Court judge鈥 being two examples.
Our critics argued that headlines are what stick in most people's minds and so we need to be more careful how we phrase them so that we don't mislead while trying to pique our audiences interest in a story to keep them reading/listening/watching.
Earlier on Wednesday, I had been taking part in a conference at the on relations between the media and the Ministry of Defence where one of my co-panellists argued that headlines can be so inaccurate as to almost contradict what is in the story. A much discussed example there a headline in mid-August that British soldiers in Afghanistan had a one in 36 chance of being killed in combat which the most of the participants at RUSI insisted was not what the reports actually said.
These critics are right in at least one respect - we do need to be careful with our headlines and we don't always get it right - though on Wednesday night I think our headline was an accurate rendering of the story and the introduction to the item in the programme was in that context and was not misleading - you can check it out for yourself and make your own mind by clicking here to listen to the programme.
Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight
