The BBC has a report out called The Future of News. The authors are some of my most talented colleagues, and their work is as comprehensive and well-thought through as it is blunt in its assessment of how far and fast our industry needs to change.
There is one thing missing though: exactly what the future looks like. It’s no-one’s fault. We’re doing well to understand the seismic shifts being delivered by technology and the internet, but knowing where they will leave us is out of reach.
That though won’t stop us trying to figure it out. Which brings us to Outside Source, a BBC TV news show which looks like no other, and which has a screen that allows me to select from a vast array of sources as I cover stories. We can’t be sure if it’s the future, but it’s making right now very exciting.
For years, TV news has been the most consumed form of journalism. 76 million people watch BBC World News every week. 76 million. That’s an awful lot. But we know that what many of those people want from TV news is changing. And if we don’t give it to them, there’s a chance they’ll switch off and pick up their phone. In fact, they’re going to have their phone on whatever we do, but you get my point: if TV is to have a role, it has to change.
Next, to what I will call the ‘great expectations’ almost all created by the net.
In the spirit of Buzzfeed, perhaps I could offer a list.
Whilst many of our viewers still value traditional news broadcasting, there’s a growing group of people who want BBC News (or any other broadcaster for that matter) to 1) let them choose the stories they consume 2) offer the option to contribute to, discuss and share stories 3) see everything available that’s relevant to a story 4) use more graphics and data to explain the news 5) have a tone that’s less college lecture, more conversation and 6) show the news developing in real-time just like it does on social media. And we’ve got to be interconnected. The news is no longer the information available to any one organisation.
These expectations will feel familiar to many of you. They’re certainly familiar to me. That’s because this is not some vision of the future for a time when the world’s teenagers have grown up. This is now. This is you, me, anyone with the internet. Our needs have been changed by the rapid development of the digital world. Audiences now need something different. Currently that’s 40% of the planet’s adults and it’s only going to go up.
It’d be easy to read a list like that and think, ‘Hold on, if these expectations are driven by online news, and can be catered for by online news, then why not just point them in the direction of, er, online news and scale everything else back?’
The answer is a simple one. Billions of people still want to watch the news on their televisions. They still want their chosen broadcaster to select the information that it feels is most important at that given moment. What’s changed is the information people want us to sift for them. And they want to see the sifting too!
To do that in a way that is functional and looks good too, we needed a new bit of kit. I got a message from a viewer in South Africa the other day which began, ‘Hi big screen news guy’ (I’ve received a lot worse on Twitter). And, well, her description is accurate.
The OS screen is an enormous tablet computer. Through it I can access all video and audio feeds coming into the BBC newsroom, all reports filed by the BBC’s extensive network of correspondents around the world, social media, briefing notes, newswires, interactive maps, satellite images, stills from agencies and individuals, and live location reporting. Or put it another way, everything that’s coming into the BBC newsroom and everything that’s being posted online. That’s quite a combination.
The internet is, if you’ll forgive me stating the obvious, a network of people and information. Networks by their nature don’t go from A to B to C, they aren’t linear. Nor is how we all consume news online. Traditionally though that is exactly what TV news has been. The Outside Source screen allows me to show you stories evolving, and I can move from A to C and back to B if need be. It’s fluid, spontaneous and a long way from a traditional running order.
On breaking stories this is a particularly powerful tool. When the attacks in the Canadian parliament and the Sydney café were unfolding we could mix witness tweets, maps, satellite images, latest police and politicians’ clips, agency copy and live TV feeds in a way that would be impossible on a regular TV set.
With the ebola outbreak in West Africa, viewers in the affected countries have shared experiences and expertise that have contributed to and improved our coverage.
Or on the Oscar Pistorius trial in Pretoria, while talking to our correspondent Andrew Harding, I could select questions coming in via the OS screen and get our viewers the answers they wanted. We’re making connections that were previously out of reach.
Time will tell if Outside Source points the way for TV news but I do know I want to make sure that if you switch the show on, you’re guaranteed the immediacy and full range of information on a story that comes from being online.
TV will never match the infinite nature of the net, but I don’t want infinity when I check the news – I want stories in whatever form they come, as they are at that moment, with a clear explanation of why this matters and an option to contribute. That’s what Outside Source is doing, and if you’re watching while online, that would make sense too. So join me on BBC World News from Monday to Thursday or at @BBCOS or @BBCRosAtkins and you can help seek out the future of news.