According to the Guardian (BBC tells news staff to embrace social media), BBC news journalists have been advised to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News. He took over last week and said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories. They quote him, “This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

I would agree and have written a bit about how mainstream media does need to get more creative with its use of social media (see Mainstream Media versus Social Media? Not Really the Right Question.). Getting material for articles is one of several ways that traditional television news media needs to make use of social media to survive the social media onslaught.

For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers have now become essential tools and aggregating and curating content with attribution have become essential skills. In addition, BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand, another important use of social media for mainstream media.

The BBC also created a social media editor post in October. This is another related trend we have reported on here (see Mainstream Media Take on Social Media Directors).  The Guardian concludes by noting that as technology is changing the nature of journalism, the BBC is trying to keeping up with the pace. Horrocks is quoted again, “If you don’t like it, if you think that level of change or that different way of working isn’t right for me, then go and do something else, because it’s going to happen. You’re not going to be able to stop it.” Ahem.

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This slide shows us that another kind of content is winning big time. We can’t pass this slide over – it must be dealt with.

It is clear after the recent IMA conference that public radio remains stuck. Recent changes at NPR highlight the challenge that still remains. NPR will now be looking again at what is important.

This slide reminds me of a shift in power. I think that it deserves a little more thought than merely saying that user trumps producer. Does it simply mean that User Content Wins?

I think that that may be interpreted here is that a more authentic, a more natural, a more human voice and perspective is what we want. I wonder if “User” content is really a proxy for more human content?

One of the most natural and human voices in the Blogosphere is Euan Semple. Here he is on the ‘Phoric talking about the power of the more human – less staged – voice to connect.

One of the examples that he uses is a short film he took on Sydney Harbour. As a tourist, using a simple camera, he took a film of Sydney Harbour and put it on his blog. Shortly after he was contacted by a travel firm who wanted to use his clip. Why? because it showed a real person’s view. From a traditional perspective it was very low quality. From a new perspective it was high quality.

Think of art at the end of the 19th century.

This was seen as quality then:

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This painting is by Bouguereau, The Man, of the time. Look at the quality of the flesh tones! He represented “Quality”- the official view of the time. Think of the production quality of radio and TV today. Smooth, slick, controlled. Hard to do.

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This painting is by Renoir. Look at how he handles flesh! This view of quality was so offensive to the establishment that the impressionists had to have their own exhibition. But who remembers Bougueureau’s name now?

The quality of the Impressionists is emotional. They use light to find a deeper and more human meaning.

Euan’s last film shows how traditional media can bridge to the new. Just as the crew at Bryant park now show their human side online to their inner group, so here on the BBC, we go inside the studio and discover the human behind the curtain. As we see the humanity, we are pulled in. The power imbalance is leveled out.

I think that this is the meaning of the slide – much more than user driven – more human.

This then is more hopeful for if BPP and parts of the BBC can be more human, the gulf is not too wide.

Remember – Who knows Bouguereau today?

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This Wednesday, Nov 15th, the guys at WOSU will meet with may of the leading local bloggers in Columbus to see if they can find things to talk about and to do with each other. Here is the invitation:

We at WOSU and COSI have been wondering how we could do more to help our community cope with some challenging issues. We asked ourselves:

What if we — your local public broadcaster and science museum — and those of you who are the local blogging experts got together and learned how to use Social Media to bring back that great American tradition of the community taking charge of its own problems?

Here’s what we’re wondering:

Could we use social media and our many talents and resources to breakthrough the bureaucratic barriers that seem to block so much local reform?

Could we gain enough support and understanding to shift our education system so that our children are equipped to face the sometime harsh realities of the world?

Could we start to make sense of what our aging population, our health care system and even our food system may mean to us?

What other issues should we be discussing with an eye toward change?

Many local bloggers have deep subject knowledge and are also part of existing communities that also care and know a lot.

We have a big megaphone—radio and web site—and some great resources—a centrally located facility with cutting-edge technology (studios and a mediaLab) that we could add to the mix.

Can you imagine what we might be able to do together?

Interested? We would like to invite you to the first meeting of the Columbus Social Media Cafe — a “Town Hall” Open Space Meeting — on Thursday, November 15 at 6:30 pm, to see if we can find an agenda that we can all get excited about and to see what will emerge if we get together.

The meeting is at WOSU@COSI inside COSI at 333 West Broad Street in downtown Columbus.

Tim Eby, retiring Chair of NPR, will be blogging here – see the picture above – and he will be Twittering here. Scott will be vidoing some of the participants and WOSU will put the clips up on their site soon.

There will be pictures here on Flickr

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This is a look at part of the amazing space at COSI.

The hope is that this may be the beginning of a new approach to Hyper Local Coverage – where the bloggers and the public TV/Radio – can combine their talents and efforts.

Many thanks to Robin Hammam at the BBC and to Jeff Jarvis for inspiring this efort.