News Agenda for Daily Echo and BBC Radio 4

I have been extremely enjoying Practical Journalism sessions about News Agenda we have had for the last couple of weeks. Having in depth analysis of different types of newspapers was very interesting and gave me an idea of how they are really created and put together to attract readers’ attention. Our task for the last session was to make a presentation on News Agenda of given newspaper and radio station. My presentation was based on Daily Echo and BBC Radio 4. We were also asked to contact the marketing departments of the selected newspapers and radio stations obtain their advertising rates and the claims they make about the size and nature of their audiences. Luckily, Hana did the same thing as me, which was good enough as we could communicate and discuss both newspaper and radio station together. We decided to ring the advertising departments together (as we both had to do it anyway). I shall not talk about the most embarrassing thing that we did... Or shall I? I always knew that BBC advertise their own programmes to inform the audience about what’s coming next on the show, but thinking that, we didn’t realise that they didn’t carry any other adverts.. oops.. Silly geese we are- Or as I would say it- silly mooes, but it is just Justina’s Phrase- not commonly used by many people, but let’s not go into this now.

Anyway, I shall put my written analysis on News Agenda for BBC radio 4 and The Daily Echo

BANG



The Daily Echo is a local newspaper that covers the area of south-central Hampshire, including the city of Southampton. The newspaper's main offices are in the Redbridge area of Southampton, with district offices in Eastleigh, Winchester and Lymington. It is owned and published by Newsquest, which is the second largest publisher of local newspapers in the United Kingdom. They publish more than 300 newspapers, including 17 dailies.

The newspaper is politically neutral. It doesn’t really cover any political matters or Parliament issues and it doesn’t support any political party. The politicians are not the main aspects of news, in contrast to BBC Radio 4 news. An exception for this point is one of the sections of The Daily Echo’s news agenda called ‘Your views’, which contains reader’s stories and views. Gordon Brown is a very recent inspiration of public desire to write a short article for this local newspaper. Other than that- the newspaper doesn’t contain political global message. It, however, takes up affairs relative to the region they write about.

The Daily Echo’s major aspire is to bring an unbiased view of the latest, up-to-the minute news and sport from Southampton, Hampshire and The Saints. The main features covered in the newspaper are related to the local public, such as a story about five missing turkeys in Twyford or ‘a lucky Southampton hairdresser’ going off to Hollywood after winning tickets to see a movie. However, there are also more serious, worldwide features covered in news agenda, such as an educative story about the Polish death camp, Auschwitz. (Saturday, November 14, 2009, p.22) I believe it is extremely essential for everyone to know a little about the world’s history, especially this one, as it was probably the most horrific place of terror in the history of the world.

The target audience for the Daily Echo is very various. It includes both, men and women as well as children, teenagers and mostly families living in Southampton area, who are associated with the newspaper. It is conveyed through the variety of adverts on the front cover in a newspaper, such as on Friday 13th of November, the front cover included Wheels- motor section for men. An advert containing a chance of winning a trip to London for Christmas shopping tempts women audience to buy a copy. There is also an advert of fun, full of laugher pantomime called ‘Santa Clause and the return of Jack Frost’, which suggests an entertaining event for children and the whole family. The rate card shows that 51% of readers are men and 49% are women. The (almost) equality suggests that the reporters try to cover all different aspects of entertainment, including true, fascinating stories which will interest everybody.




BBC Radio Four is a UK radio station which broadcasts a large collection of spoken-word programmes. This includes news, drama, comedy, science and history features. Many of their slots are discussion based, centred around politics or arts.
One of the most significant things I noticed when analysing BBC Radio Four was the lack of music. This is probably the most influential factor on its target audience and demographics. Music is an important part of most people’s lives, as it a major way of entertaining and will tend to listen to the show playing their preferred style of music. BBC Radio Four hardly ever play music and when they do it is very specific to the particular topic being covered at the time. It is always old or classical. This suggests that you would only regularly listen for the discussions and topics they cover-a less educated person would have no need or desire to listen to the majority of topics covered on Radio Four.

The station has many topics geared towards a more mature audience. This is very apparent through all different time periods of BBC Radio Four. All the presenters possess that stereotypical accent of an educated person with the majority of their target audience being educated to certain standard. For example, on Saturday morning, the 14th of November, John McCarthy appears to talk to Jan Morris, who has been travelling and writing about her journeys for more than 50 years. John McCarthy talks to her about some of the individuals she has came across all over the world in that half century - rich and poor, renowned and obscure, friendly and unwelcoming. They reflected on the nature of travel and whether it is more about places or people. The conversation went on for 30 minutes.

The demographics of the radio are precise. My point about saying that is that regions with larger lower class communities and young people would not listen to BBC Radio Four. These sorts of areas tend to have people doing general industry jobs or not working at all. Statistics has shown these sorts of people listen to local radio stations, or stations which tend to play lots of music rather than discussion based more political stations.

All news is based around Politics, government, politicians and army. They tend to talk about The Guardian newspaper quite often, as well. I believe that having national and international in depth reporting, intelligent analysis and major breaking news from a global perspective is a fantastic business as it allows the target audience to enlarge. I would say this programme is good for immigrants as they can hear worldwide news rather than just the ones from the UK.

Code of Conduct

NUJ Code of Conduct is a set of relevant and useful guidelines and the main principles for journalists to follow during their reporting to make sure that they keep the profession and standards that are expected in the performance of their duties.

One common rule, or in fact, a matter of professional principle among journalists is to never reveal his/her sources of confidential information. If they do, they career will be tainted with mistrust. This journalistic ethical code secures a relationship with the public and provides protection.

Part of being a journalist is to face adversity and going against a law or code is sometimes the only way to tell the public the truth, but truth is what ultimately gains their trust and respect. Laws and codes are necessary to provide a benchmark for journalists to work from and maintain professionalism. Without them some journalists would lose sight of what fundamental principles they need to follow in order to behave responsibly. There are times when a journalist’s own instinct and ethical manner will maintain respect and trust of the public better than the codes. There are also instances when pressure, time and money prevent a journalist from maintaining those codes. Whatever the circumstances, the one rule that should be constant is that journalists are the eyes and ears of the public; their trust and respect should always take precedence.


Here is an up to date NUJ Code of Conduct from NUJ website:

A journalist:
1. At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed
2. Strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair
3. Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies
4. Differentiates between fact and opinion
5. Obtains material by honest, straightforward and open means, with the exception of investigations that are both overwhelmingly in the public interest and which involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means
6. Does nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the public interest
7. Protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work
8. Resists threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information
9. Takes no unfair personal advantage of information gained in the course of her/his duties before the information is public knowledge
10. Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation
11. Does not by way of statement, voice or appearance endorse by advertisement any commercial product or service save for the promotion of her/his own work or of the medium by which she/he is employed
12. Avoids plagiarism.


I also found the Journalist’s Creed which I found quite interesting:

The Journalist's Creed is a code of ethics written around 1906 by Walter Williams (journalist)

1.I believe in the profession of Journalism.

2.I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.

3.I believe that clear thinking, clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.

4.I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true. I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible

5.I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one's own pocket book is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends.

6.I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

7.I believe that the journalism which succeeds the best-and best deserves success-fears God and honors man; is stoutly independent; unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power; constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of the privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law, an honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship, is a journalism of humanity, of and for today's world.

The moral basics of democratic socialism

‘Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains’
‘To know one’s chains for what they are is better than to deck them with flowers.’

/Rousseau/

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art and poetry. It is rather an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world. The main aspects of Romantic age were freedom, equality and socialism. It states an idea of recreation against the Enlightenment where uniqueness of individual was established and beliefs in supremacy of emotions were very important.

Rousseau makes it explicitly clear in his writings, “The Social Contract and Discourses” that he believes strongly in personal freedom and autonomy. Rousseau believed that a truly free government is one where everyone votes, every citizen. Rousseau argues that by everyone surrendering his or her rights to the sovereign equally they maintain freedom. He believes man has the most freedom in the state of nature, but because man has the ability to rationalize and the desire to be social, he must enter a social contract with others in order to have a free and equal society.

Aristotle and Hobbs, believed that no men are by no means equal naturally, because some of them are born for slavery. This contrasts Rousseau’s views. He argues in a chapter ‘Slavery’ that all men are naturally free and nobody should be authorized to have power over another human being, he says ‘No man has a natural authority over his fellow’. This, however, matches up to John Lock’s Natural Rights, in some way.
I think the most interesting thing I observed in his book is that he views family as the most ancient and natural society. He argues that until children need their parents, the bond between them in strong. But nothing can be changed when children desire independence and they leave to find their own way. He says’ Even if he could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children’. His idea of freedom is expressed in a clear way. He explains that even if they are your children, they are still free and you can’t own their liberty.

Let’s be free.

Everything changes

As the time goes by, you and everything about the world you live in changes. You are not the same person as you were a couple of years ago. You grow, mature. Your outlook about life is different as you learn new things through the education, environment and significant others. The inventions around are changing, too. I believe that main aspect that helps everything change is growth of technology.

In terms of Journalism, it has been going through several major technological changes during the past few decades. The print revolution started with the invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg in the fifteenth century. In his workshop, he brought together the technologies of paper, oil-based ink and the wine-press to print books. The printing press is not a single invention. It is the aggregation in one place, of technologies known for centuries before Gutenberg. Journalism then differed to what it is like now.

Before the birth of the Internet, newsrooms largely consisted of reporters and editors who relied on the conversations they had with people and the pen and notebook in their hands. There was no such thing as cameras and recorders in the newsroom. The heart of the story came from within the writer based on the questions they asked and their style of prose. Computers were big and simple and so were the programs on them. Graphic design was only just starting to get off the ground and online publications were unheard of. Today, we can get all different types of Dictaphones and tiny cameras, which will fit in a pocket, just to make the interview and then article writing easier and quicker. Back in a day, there wasn’t such thing like Microsoft Word to check spelling mistakes and grammar, so Copy Editors had to spend ages checking the articles and making sure there were no mistakes in them. Today it can be done within a very short period of time.

The expectations are changing for readers and viewers. Print publications are expanding their viewer ship to the web. Along with the story that one could read in the paper, a short video is included with the story online. Young reporters are learning how to use handheld cameras to produce these videos and video editing software is being installed on the once archaic newsroom computers.

Technology makes it so much easier for journalists to go off and write a good story to sell. Travelling and communication aren’t an issue these days either like it used to be. Instead of walking or using a horse as a quick way of communication between villages, people can get all different sorts of travel sources, such as cars, buses, taxies, even hot air balloons.


I wonder what technology will do with the world in a dozen years.