Pete Clifton cuts the crap
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Nick Robinson 'gets it,' says Pete Clifton, head of BBC Interactive in Cardiff today. 'Clearly, from this political editor we get a lot more value than we did from the last one, who did it in a very different way.'

What he means is that a Nick Robinson blog entry looks like THIS. But an Andrew Marr piece looked something like THIS.

What's the difference? About 500 words and and another world of style.

Clifton wants more blogs like Robinson's - a page which currently scores 100,000 page impressions per day. Soon we'll see select 'Correspondents' blogs' - not an 'avalanche from all over the world,' but reader-friendly material from others who 'get it' too.

As I've written before, there's too much crap in the blogosphere, so it's refreshing to see the BBC opting for depth over breadth.

But where Clifton slightly misses the point is that the BBC isn't often broad enough. He's right to filter out blogging for the sake of blogging, but what's left is simply the BBC at its most mainstream.

If the Beeb is really 'to get' the blogosphere, it must recognise its rebel culture. So, when a story breaks on Israel-Palestine, it's not enough to hear the professional thoughts of Jeremy Bowen, we want to hear from the explicitly pro-Palestine and Zionist camps too.

In the blogosphere, it's not enough to report these opinions, they need their own platform. And if the BBC won't provide it, they'll do it somewhere else.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 1:03 pm,

3 Comments:

At 8:16 am, Blogger Gavin Ayling said...

I'm confused...

Aren't the thoughts of a BBC correspondent the same as the thoughts of the Palestianians? In the same way as the thoughts of the BBC correspondents about devolution to England are the same as the thoughts of Gordon Brown and the thoughts of BBC correspondents about Mr Brown's economic management are the same as Mr Brown's?

Or maybe I'm just cheeky?

 
At 8:43 am, Blogger Blamerbell said...

Now I'm confused...

Unless that's a really convoluted way of saying you think the BBC's a teeny bit left wing?

 
At 4:03 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi. You echo some of the points I made in the following posts about the BBC blogs trial and some of the current thinking behind it -

What's the Purpose of TV and Radio Blogs?:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs/2006/11/whats_the_purpose_of_tv_and_ra_1.shtml

I've also posted a follow-up here: http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/11/more_on_how_blo.html

Robin Hamman
BBC Blogs Trial

 

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