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5 Aug 2009The story of how blogging is changing journalism at the BBC is told in my research paper, The Blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at “the world’s most trusted news organisation”, published in the August edition of Journalism Practice.
In the paper, I outline how blogging went from being an activity by a handful of journalists to being adopted by some of the BBC’s biggest names, such as Business Editor Robert Peston, despite at times vehement opposition from within the corporation.
The blog format has been increasingly adopted by mainstream news organisations. The BBC presents a unique case study its established norms of impartiality and objectivity would appear to be undermined by the idea of blogs as uncensored, unmediated and uncontrolled.
Some commentators have even suggested that blogging “chips away at the corporation’s remit to be objective and neutral.” However, the paper suggests how the BBC sought to tame blogging so as to incorporate it within its existing journalistic values.
BBC journalists mainly see blogs as a way to expand on stories they are working on for broadcast and write about news that is had to discuss on TV or radio in a more personal and conversational style. But they still have to follow BBC guidelines on reporting, and not let their commitment to impartiality drop due to the informal nature of a blog.
In fact, BBC blogs are what researchers suggest are a new genre in institutionalised media journalism (PDF), where the author is more visible and the style is more personal.
However, the BBC has been less successful at incorporating what some argue is the defining feature of blogging – the conversational and social nature of the format. BBC news bloggers have struggled to engage in a conversation with readers, a shortcoming acknowledged by executives.
A pre-publication version of the paper is available for download.
This blog is run by Professor Alfred Hermida, an award-winning online news pioneer, digital media scholar and journalism educator.
9 Responses to How blogs became part of BBC News
Bookmarks for July 27th through August 6th by andydickinson.net
August 6th, 2009 at 1:02 am
[...] How blogs became part of BBC News « Reportr.net – "The story of how blogging is changing journalism at the BBC is told in my research paper, The Blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at “the world’s most trusted news organisation”, published in the August edition of Journalism Practice." and the blog post has lots more interesting stuff around the subject of blogging inside a media organisation [...]
Reportr.net: ‘How blogs became part of BBC News’ | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
August 6th, 2009 at 3:42 am
[...] at ‘the world’s most trusted news organisation’” – and he has put up a pre-publication version on his blog. “In the paper, I outline how blogging went from being an activity by a handful of [...]
Twitted by Hermida
August 6th, 2009 at 5:47 am
[...] This post was Twitted by Hermida [...]
Blogs en los medios, caso BBC — Sicrono
August 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
[...] al estudio que hizo Alfred Hermida sobre los blogs y el periodismo analizando el caso de la BBC. The Blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at “the world’s most trusted news organisation” (descarga del avance en .pdf), pone foco en el impacto que produce la utilización del blog en [...]
links for 2009-08-10 « Sarah Hartley
August 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
[...] How blogs became part of BBC News « Reportr.net BBC journalists mainly see blogs as a way to expand on stories they are working on for broadcast and write about news that is had to discuss on TV or radio in a more personal and conversational style. But they still have to follow BBC guidelines on reporting, and not let their commitment to impartiality drop due to the informal nature of a blog. (tags: news blog blogs journalism blogging bbc research newsroom) [...]
jen
August 10th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Interesting finds here. I think it would be a mistake to make blogging the primary means of giving information on the bbc website, but it definitely makes a nice extra!
BBC’s Robert Peston on the ‘total’ journalist « Reportr.net
August 29th, 2009 at 8:40 am
[...] participatory potential of the blog format is important to Peston, though my research has found that the BBC hasn’t quite tapped into this as much as it could: It connects me to [...]
BBC Journalist Robert Peston – the Blog is at the core of everything I do « End of Business as Usual – Glenn's External blog
January 30th, 2010 at 8:03 am
[...] PDRTJS_settings_458967_post_2483 = { "id" : "458967", "unique_id" : "wp-post-2483", "title" : "BBC+Journalist+Robert+Peston+-+the+Blog+is+at+the+core+of+everything+I+do", "item_id" : "_post_2483", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Fglennas.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F01%2F30%2Fbbc-journalist-robert-peston-the-blog-is-at-the-core-of-everything-i-do%2F" } Just read a nice piece from Alfred Hermida – Professor of Journalism at UBC, and ex BBC Multimedia Journalist – from August 2009 on How Blogs became part of BBC News. [...]
The Blog is at the core of everything I do – BBC Journalist Robert Peston « End of Business as Usual – Glenn's External blog
January 30th, 2010 at 8:04 am
[...] PDRTJS_settings_458967_post_2483 = { "id" : "458967", "unique_id" : "wp-post-2483", "title" : "The+Blog+is+at+the+core+of+everything+I+do+-+BBC+Journalist+Robert+Peston", "item_id" : "_post_2483", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Fglennas.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F01%2F30%2Fthe-blog-is-at-the-core-of-everything-i-do-bbc-journalist-robert-peston%2F" } Just read a nice piece from Alfred Hermida – Professor of Journalism at UBC, and ex BBC Multimedia Journalist – from August 2009 on How Blogs became part of BBC News. [...]