NUJ New Media

Convergence - the final frontier

To the Emirates stadium today for a government think-tank session on digital convergence. Today's - rather grandly titled "What is Convergence?" - is the first in a series of events where Whitehall will apparently attempt to piece together some sort of coherent government overview on the mysterious future of the digital world.



Many of the great and the good from the media, hi-tech industry and academia were in attendance, with representatives from the Beeb, ITV, Orange, AOL, Five, Channel 4, the CBI, Guardian, Newspaper Society, Sky, O2...etc

Andy Burnham MP, the recently appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport kicked off proceedings with the usual Nu-Labour speak about the importance of "open markets", diversity and putting consumers in charge etc. According to Mr Burnham, it was important that the think tank wasn't just seen as "insiders talking to insiders" and stressed the importance of including young people in the debate.

A surreptitious glance round the room confirmed there was no-one there under the age of 30, so quite where the input of the "born digital" generation will come from is anybody’s guess, a point picked up by the platform.

Oh, and the findings of the think tank "might or might not" form part of new legislation...my guess is that it probably wont unless Murdoch wants some more favours.

First up in the panel session was the chief executive of Ofcom Ed Richards. He felt that the changes brought about by convergence will bring "disruption" - not only to the media industry but to consumers as the wider media tries to adapt to the digital future. Of course, most NUJ reps would argue that this has been going on across the media for years already, with many hard-working journalists trying to make the best of hair-brained and ill-thought-through schemes to move into the online world drawn up by starry-eyed bosses who don't fully understand the technology...



BBC Director General Mark Thompson spoke about the success of the new iplayer application, with more than two million users since the launch on Christmas Day 2007. However, while evangelising about the brave new world, Thompson also defended radio broadcasting as being central to BBC output and also stressed the need for "outstanding content" as central to digital delivery...

Neil Berkett from Virgin Media told the group that, last Sunday, his broadband customers had downloaded the equivalent of 313 million MP3 tracks in data. Sunday is apparently the busiest day for downloads. (Thus confirming that most UK broadband users are now finally learning to switch off Last of the Summer Wine and instead go on You Tube to rerun that video of Star Wars Kid...)

Marc Overton of Orange moaned about how relatively cheap fixed term broadband was for consumers in comparison to the actual cost of providing the service and support. Damn us savvy customers for going for the cheapest deals! Presumably Orange will either be upping their prices or pulling out of the broadband market. It could be the latter - as Marc predicted that, at an indeterminate point in the future, there would only be three broadband providers for the UK - most likely BT, Virgin and Sky...

He also, rather depressingly, spoke about the popularity of the "Buff or Rough" feature on the Orange website as being one of their most popular developments. (Maybe they hadn't been around during the height of the "Am I Hot Or Not" craze all those years ago...)

The most lucid contribution of the day came from Nick Bertolotti - Investment Fund Managing Director from Credit Suisse. He effectively said what we had all suspected - that the city was "scared of convergence" and that the UK was already "behind the curve". Brands were less important in the online sphere and the established large media companies were under threat from smaller companies, therefore threatening investment etc.

His advice to the media bosses? "Build up the brand. Build up the content side." Ironic that it should be the most overt profiteer on the platform that comes out with what the NUJ has been saying for years about media companies investing in good quality content...

The best contribution of the day came from the floor - Jackie Devereux of the Community Media Association. She picked up on the theme that had come from the platform all morning - that the "individual" was key to the convergence debate. She challenged the notion that the "born digital" generation (anyone under 23) would forevermore be locked away alone in darkened rooms in front of a screen addicted to the net, noting that peoples priorities change as they get older and we don't all stay aged 16 for ever. Amen.

She also pointed out that just because we could now individualise our media consumption, this would not alter the fact that families would sit down and watch a TV show together...a refreshing antidote to the prevalent idea of the day that we would all become anti-social slaves to our handheld devices in years to come.

Finally exposing the elephant that had sat conspicuously in the corner all morning, Devereux made the most valid point of the day that the digital divide is still huge, with almost 50% of children at some inner city schools not having access to a computer at home, along with the scant availability of quality broadband services in poor areas...one for the powers that be to ponder as they attempt to make sense of the rapidly changing digital environment.

I managed to make the NUJ positions during the "break out" discussion group about the very real dangers facing existing media, particularly for local paper staff and freelances, because of the rush online and the need to train all journalists to work across platforms. I also banged the drum for quality content - and the need for all online news content to be managed and produced by experienced and trained professionals. Whether or not these points are taken into the "final cut", remains to be seen.

Labels: convergence, journalism, journalists, multimedia, national union of journalists

posted by Alex Dawson @ 14:18 0 comments

New Media news from ADM

The National Union of Journalists Centenary Annual Delegate Meeting has already received quite a lot of international attention for one issue, but for those of us in the New Media sector, there was amidst the three days of serious business, a number of key issues addressed.

Most important of all was the final resolution of the long-running issue of the rate of subs for journalists in New Media. Since the sector was established, members have been paying subs at the highest rate. Well, not for much longer! It'll take a couple of months to sort out the details, but come the end of the summer months, our members working on the websites of existing media companies will pay no more than their colleagues, while those working in so-called green field sites will pay at Grade 1 - around half the top grade! So, anyone who said they wouldn't join because it was too expensive, take note - you were right and we'll soon have it sorted.

More importantly for the union as a whole was the establishment of a major multi-media working commission to report in a few months time on the entire range of issues the media is facing as new media takes a serious hold. From local newspaper journalists being handed a video camera to the threat to jobs in the major media centres as individual journalists are expected to do the work of three or four people at the same time, numerous motions were put forwards and passed criticising the these trends and calling for constructive engagement with the union to all journalists to do their jobs properly in this new environment.

The commission will look at all the issues and give guidance to members on best practice and previous successes of the union. And the New Media Industrial Council (NMIC) is strong in the commission, with ADM electing both our chair - Jemima Kiss - and veteran council member Gary Herman and the National Executive Council making it a hat trick by electing yours truly. We're joined by colleagues from both the Guardian and BBC websites. The Commission will be launched at the Educate, Agitate, Integrate conference to be held on 5 May 2007 in London. The conference flyer is available here. Expect more on this soon.

A major fringe meeting on digital convergence organised at conference by NMIC doubtless influenced the votes of delegates. See the ADM blog for more details on this over-subscribed event (people were sitting on the floor and gathered around the door in the corridors outside). Pulling in expertise from across the union, as well as Dr Andy Williams’, who wrote a great report into Trinity Mirror’s online strategy, the meeting really made clear the current landscape and detailed the challenges the union and our members face. Be sure to check out the videos.

This year's China and internet censorship motion was far less combative and confusing. There was general agreement with stepping up the work on internet censorship, both within the NUJ and IFJ, and NMIC was even congratulated on the Yahoo! action of last summer. However, conference stopped short of calling for a boycott of Yahoo! mailing lists, accepting the argument that, with international talks involving Yahoo! on-going, now was not the right time. However, later on, conference agreed that the NEC should investigate ways of facilitating NUJ-hosted email lists.

And finally, a serious topic descended into a rather funny battle of the Luddites versus the Nerds! The subject was virtual branches – the question of removing the rule that says branches must meet in person and allow branches to meet in cyberspace only. On one side those who point out that there's a potential branch in Spain, for example, but the distance between members makes a physical meeting so impractical it's as good as impossible. On the other side are those that argue that physical meetings are a core part of union activity and that efforts should be focussed on improving them rather than creating alternatives.

The serious debate was soon overtaken by one side calling the other luddites and them being called nerds in response! And the funniest contribution was the one member who argued that it was too soon to use things like email – maybe when the bugs are ironed out we should think about it. Ah, bless. The vote went against in the end, though I like to think that was more to do with the perceived issue of defending traditional branch structures and not the bugginess of the technology.

Many, many more motions, on a wide variety of topics covering a whole swathe of issues – showing our union to be democratic and connected to the world in way that still excites its members. Despite all the criticism about one particular motion, that shouldn't be allowed to overshadow so many other things the ADM discussed, debated and agreed.

Labels: censorship, china, convergence, integration, newmedia, nuj

posted by Donnacha DeLong @ 22:26 2 comments