Less that a month after the Bell Pottinger gets caught boasting about using ‘dark arts’ and ‘having a team that could sort Wikipedia,’ it appears that another agency has been outed.

Rival public relations agency Portland Communications has been caught by West Brom MP Tom Watson for trying to edit out the name of Stella Artois, a brand owned by Portland client inBev, from the Wikipedia description page for Wife-beater.

Watson rightly suggests in Portland Communications Wikipedia discussion page that agencies list their clients in their own Wikipedia entries so to declare conflict of interest and as I suspect for transparency sake.

What is interesting is that at 16.31 today (04/01/2012) Wikipedia user Portlander11 edits Portland Communications Wikipedia page and adds, ‘Current and previous clients include BTA Bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov and AB InBev,’ before adding, ‘The reason for this change is that Mr Ablyazov is not and never has been a client of Portland Communications.’  That final statement is very clear, stating that Mr Ablyazov ‘is not and has never been a client of Portland Communications.‘

Looking at the Wikipedia page for Mr Mukhtar Ablyazov one sees that the page has been edited on a regular basis, mostly by registered Wikipedia users.  A number of edits though are from a user whose IP address has been captured as ‘83.244.252.242.’  This IP address has the following hostname associated with it, ‘mx9.portland-communications.com.’  Perhaps, that bold and unambiguous statement is not as accurate as Portlander11 led many people, including Tom Watson MP to believe.

The fact is that fingerprints exist online.  The web connects people.  Wikipedia and social networking site brings groups together that act as editors and fact checkers, something, it appears that some public relations consultancies are yet to understand.

UPDATE: I should point you to two blog posts that were equally published yesterday by Stuart Bruce and Phil Gomes, the latter calling on Wikipedia to ‘have an open, constructive and fair discussion about the important issues where public relations and Wikipedia interset.’

The Times ran a story this week on how celebrities were using PR agencies to drive bad news that is circulated online away from public’s view – burying it away in pages people rarely visit.  Times reporter Billy Kenber followed up his initial piece with further insight on how some agencies work.  There is a problem with his piece though, that being the insinuation that it’s solely PR agencies that are behind these shady practices.

Reputation management as we know is not a new discipline within public relations.  The skills needed have been around for many, many years.  That said, since today we are influenced by what we read online and what our friends and peers share with us the need and demand for online reputation management (ORM) has dramatically increased.

Reputation is at the core of any business. It shapes our trust with brands and individuals.  If that trust is challenged we take our business elsewhere, which is why in today’s real-time and connected world it is essential to keep track of how communities can build or break reputations.

Kenber gave the example of Woburn Safari Park who allegedly paid an agency to bury news stories about a critical report from the Department for Environment , Food and Rural Affairs  (DEFRA) on the conditions of the animals in its care.  Weeks after stories were published The Times reported that the park hired the services of an online reputation management agency.  If this is all it did then rightly so one can be critical of how it acted given DEFRA’s findings.  Certainly not a way of repairing a reputation.

Online reputation management agencies are not public relations agencies.  There is a need for their services, but these should be used as part of a much more strategic campaign.  Burying bad news and the associated debate that takes place online is not going job is not going to serve a company good in the long-term.  In fact it is likely to do further damage.

Public Relations is about reputation.  It is as the CIPR states about ‘the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’  Key words here are planned and sustained.  Making a sustained effort is much more that just burying news, much more that negative briefings.  It is in today’s business and consumer environment about real-time decisions that can humanise a brand and assist it in gaining support and the much needed understanding.

There is a need for the skills that Kenber highlights.  We have seen plenty of examples of how small businesses have suffered because of critical online reviews that have either been wide of the mark or libellous.  We should remember that people have different standards and can quickly mount negative online assaults, often without realising how they are opening themselves up to a legal dispute.

PR agencies do use whatever is needed help organisations protect their reputation.  But, it is these PR agencies that use these tools in proportion to what is needed to achieve.  If a client or employer has messed up the damage has been done.  Doing what Kenber talks about only makes matters worse.  A professional communications agency would have advised to stay clear of burying bad online news.  Agencies that would do this kind of work, do it without understanding the bigger picture.

Facebook Credits

Facebook Credits came out of beta in January this year.  Since it was launched in May 2009 in alpha it was believed that Credits would be used solely by people playing social games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars.  Virtual currency would give gamers that added experience when competing with their friends on Facebook.  Those thinking that might have missed the whole point about Facebook having it’s own currency and the opportunity that it presents to companies and causes.

During the last two years Facebook has been rolling out a series of offerings such as Facebook Connect that have enabled users to log-in to third party sites with their Facebook account.  This made the social networking site into an aggregator, allowing users to not just publish, but see what people within their network like online – based on websites that adopted Facebook Connect.

More recently Facebook has been rolling out it’s Questions and Comments applications.  The latter has been received plenty of views from the social media community.  Techcrunch’s Jon Evans says that Comments epitomizes everything that he hates about Facebook, before adding that because it is so simple he might end up using it.  Comments allows Facebook to further plough into third party sites.  It is becoming the platform of choice for websites.  Why?  Well because everyone appears to be on it.  In the UK there are now 30 million individual users, 35 million in Indonesia and many million more in the US.

I came back from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and what I learnt is how quickly they started to trade on Facebook.  E-commerce is being replaced by f-commerce.  Businesses are realising than rather that spending money to get people to spend money on their sites, perhaps they should be investing to get the business of people on Facebook – cross the road to sell to your audience rather than get the audience to cross the road.  Sounds simple, yet for many businesses a step too far.

Today you can buy airline tickets, clothes, tickets, just about anything.  Business is slowly realising that Facebook is also a site through which you can sell.

Facebook Credits might in the future be another extension that can be implanted onto third party sites.  The days though have passed when the cashier used to ask if “sir would be paying by cash or credit?”  PayPal is now looking over its shoulders at the over 500 million account mammoth that is bearing down.  “Will that be with PayPal or Facebook Credits sir?”

Who knows, perhaps one day we will all pull up a paywall that will charge Facebook Credits, which we can then redeem on other people’s sites.  Crazy idea, but you heard it here first!

BBC DG Mark Thompson

Convergence.  This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference.  It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.

Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review.  This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.

Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed.  It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with.  And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.

Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with.  They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content.  The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform.  Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.

Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward.  In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.

Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.

One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television.  Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.

Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population.  Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.

Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic.  Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.

Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer.  For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it.  Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example.  Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?

So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself.  The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it.  Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.

I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy?  Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe?  Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity.  The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.

Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings.  The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.

Sky News Studio

Sky News made the headlines in March 2009 when it appointed a Twitter correspondent to scour the real-time platform ‘for stories’ and give Sky News a presence on the Twittersphere.  At the time Guardian writer Jemima Kiss said that she was “in two minds about the creation of a Twitter Correspondent.”

An internal Sky News memo obtained by Techcrunch at the time highlighted how the editorial team saw that news stories were breaking on Twitter thanks to users who eye-witnessed stories and then reported them to their followers.  Ruth Barnett, who today is the channel’s Online Politics Producer, was chosen as their Twitter correspondent.

I meet with Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett earlier this week, who confirmed that searching for news on Twitter and other social media platforms is now part of every journalist’s remit at Sky News.  I asked Chris about the impact that social media’s had on its newsgathering and content promotion operation.

Birkett said that their web and online team are responsible amongst other things for verifying content sent in to the newsroom through social media channels.  Birkett added that the number of users accessing Sky News online was being challenged by those who got the outlets news through their social media feeds.

Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett

Today the Sky News website has an audience reach of c.7.5 million unique users – 3.3 million in Europe and a further 4.2 million in other markets around the world.  Their iPhone app has been downloaded 2 million times, with Birkett confirming a “massive rise in users accessing the site through mobile devices,” something that is encouraging the news outlet to make it’s app available on other platforms, such Android, which recently announced it supported flash video.

Birkett noted that 18,000 people watched the Sky News Leader’s Debate from their smartphone.  We were also shown the development room where they were testing their forthcoming iPad app.

The one disappointment from a mobile aspect was that while the iPhone app has the facility for users to send in user generated content (ugc) the numbers have not yet excited editorial staff.  ‘Not yet’ being the watchword.

Asked if Sky News had benefited from The Times and Sunday Times paywall Birkett said that there didn’t appear to be a surge in traffic, which leaves one to question where Times Online users gone to?  Birkett did say though that Sky News has 650 staff – a lot less than the BBC, 500 of which are at the Sky News Centre and of which 150 are journalists.  The Times and Sunday Times meanwhile have dedicated 700 journalists, allowing the Wapping titles to provide the in-depth comment and analysis while Sky News focus on short video.

We are looking forward to another visit and further insight from Sky News.

KPMG reports that that consumers are “spending less on traditional and digital media than six months ago, but consuming more.”

The six-monthly KPMG Media and Entertainment Barometer released yesterday shows that average spend per UK consumer on traditional media fell from “from £9.19 in September 2009 to £7.46 in March 2010 and spend on digital media also fell (from £1.99 to £0.98).”

However, media consumption increased.  The average monthly consumption of traditional media rose marginally from 11 hrs 40 minutes in September 09, to 12 hours 13 minutes.  Hours spent consuming digital media increased 17 per cent, from 6 hours 14 minutes to 7 hours 28 minutes, confirming the importance of online and digital channels in communications campaigns.

Of concern to media executives though is that 21 per cent of newspaper readers paid nothing for news over the past month, compared with 15 percent six months ago.  In London this almost doubled – 23 percent to 41 percent – highlighting the impact of the Evening Standard move to a ‘free’ model.  And today we hear on BBC Development Manager Stephen Martin’s Twitter feed that “free copies of The Independent out on the streets of London via the Standard distributors“.  This was followed by by other people commenting that said newspaper was also being distributed for free in Brighton.

With the increasing majority of respondents saying that they’d paid nothing for accessing online news portals – up from 84 percent in September 2009 to 88 percent in March 2010, the belief that news should be free appears to be absolute and will be challenge for executives pushing the ‘paywall’ model.  Of course The Times is rolling out its paywall for The Times and Sunday Times in June and we wait to see if this is a success.

Looking at the figures though we should note that those aged 16-24 are more likely to pay for online content than their older counterparts, who are themselves spending more time on social networking/blogging sites – increasing from 37 to 45 per cent.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s announced today that it has brought together some of the UK’s most eminent social media thinkers “to provide input into the Institute’s policy guidance, education and training.”

Led by CIPR Board Member and Stainforth MD Rob Brown the advisory board is charged with looking at the impact of social media on “online reputation developments, convergence in marketing communications and best practice social media measurement.”

CIPR President Jay O’Connor said: “A core theme in our three-year strategic plan is social media and the impact on the public relations profession.  Rob joined the CIPR board to lead our efforts in this area, feeding into our policy, research and training.  As part of this, Rob has set up the Social Media Panel – a group of some of the UK’s foremost social media contributors, who will debate and input, ensuring our guidance reflects the very best thinking and practice.

“Things are moving quickly. Reaching out to practitioners who can offer their insight so that we can guide our members and the profession appropriately is key.”

Members of the advisory board include:

• Daljit Bhurji ACIPR – Managing Director, Diffusion (@Daljit_Bhurji)
• Mark Borkowski  – Managing Director, Borkowski (@MarkBorkowski)
• Rob Brown FCIPR – Managing Director, Staniforth (@robbrown)
• Stuart Bruce MCIPR – Managing Director, Wolfstar (@stuartbruce)
• Dominic Burch – Head of Corporate Communications, ASDA (@dom_asdaPR)
• Simon Collister – Head of Non-Profit and Public Sector, We Are Social (@simoncollister)
• Gemma Griffiths – Client Director, Racepoint (@GemGriff)
• Katy Howell – Managing Director, Immediate Future (@katyhowell)
• Marshall Manson – Director of Digital Strategy, Edelman (@marshallmanson)
• Beccy McMichael – Head of Corporate & Technology, Ruder Finn (@bmcmichael)
• Danny Rogers – Editor, PR Week (@dannyrogers2001)
• Julio Romo MCIPR – PR and Communications Consultant, twofourseven (@twofourseven)
• Philip Sheldrake – Partner, Influence Crowd LLP (@sheldrake)
• Stephen Waddington MCIPR – Managing Director, Speed Communications (@wadds)
• Robin Wilson – Director Digital PR & Social Media, McCann Erickson (@robin1966)

You can keep up to date with debates and developments by following the #ciprsm hashtag.

Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10).  At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues.

WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media.  Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.”  He was right.  This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.

Answering a question that I put to him about if he agreed with Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comment that privacy was no longer a ‘social norm,’ Sir Martin said that “privacy was still the norm” and that this was one point with which he disagreed with Mark on.  “People are still concerned by it and the invasion of it,” Sir Martin added.  We should remember that privacy is individuality.

This opening day coincided with one of the speakers’ key policy announcements.  Mark Thompson, the BBC’s Director General, had been forced to bring forward by a week the results of the much-anticipated strategic review into the corporation.  Thompson outlined to the conference the plans that he was putting forward for consultation.

I was thankful that while we were in a panel discussion on ‘The Future Of News,’ before Thompson arrived, friends at the BBC tweeted me to let me know that Mark was first on Five Live and then on the BBC News Channel.  I also received a link to the following blog by Pete Ashton, which in my view nailed it with regards to what Thompson is aiming for.

While Strategic Review is aiming to slim down the BBC, detractors will keep giving it flak to avoid commentators questioning why their own companies are not performing as well as they should be.  A contact at the BBC tweeted me a private message that stated the obvious, “Part of the fun is that the BBC will always get flak for whatever it does from someone.“ Pete Ashton’s blog post said it well by highlighting how the “BBC spent a decade or more figuring it out and, surprise, they’ve kinda successful at this digital / internet game.”  And that is why I applaud the BBC.

So the Auntie is going on a self-imposed diet and will be focusing on: 1) best journalism in the world, 2) Inspiring content that brings knowledge, music and culture to life, 3) Ambitious UK drama and comedy, 4) Outstanding children’s content, and 5) Events that bring communities and the nation together.  These sound like the corporation’s key strengths, but will the cutbacks satisfy its critics?  Will it hell.  But here is the problem, apart from the reaction to the BBC’s own 6 Music DAB station – which is wrong (#saveBBC6music), a slimmed down Auntie will emerge stronger, tougher and more focused on delivering great content.

In fact, in his speech, Thompson stated without any ambiguity, “one day, the web may be the principle platform for all the BBC’s services.”  Ten years ago the BBC went online.  Today, commercial news outlets are still trying to see how to make online work for an audience that is reluctant to pay.

Before Mark Thompson’s arrival New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr, Financial Times CEO John Ridding and Google’s MD Matt Brittin had been discussing the future of news.  All the talk in the lead up to the conference had been about paywalls, would they or wouldn’t they work?

Ridding confirmed that readers were willing to pay for content by stating that the FT had “40 per cent year on year growth” with regards to subscriptions, while Brittin said that “British content [journalism] had a reputation for quality.”  But of course Brittin represented the outcast of the industry after Rupert Murdoch threatened to pull News International content out of Google’s News and it’s search.  Of course Brittin was well armed and highlighted that the search mammoth “send over 4 billion hits a month to publishers websites,” a fact that news publishers cannot ignore.

The Apple iPad was also talked about with comments from the panel about it’s potential for generating revenue.  The FT’s Ridding noted a word of caution by highlighting the risks of subscription fatigue amongst readers.

At this point you start to see what I’d noted for some time, how the media landscape was changing and how the various communications sectors were battling for survival.  Convergence is the word that sprang to mind.

For production companies it is about maximising revenues that can be reinvested elsewhere.  Yes, broadcasters are shop window from which historically they have made money, but with this stream’s drying up forcing many producers to become creative and look to use social media and other networking tools to make money.

Producers such as Endemol know that in today’s multi-platform world the audience is no longer just on television, and they are not just a viewer.  Thanks to user-generated-content and the various online tools people today are producers, promoters and marketers.  A point that is also relevant to the audiences that PRs and journalists are working to engage and influence.

The conference set out a world that is very different to that of a few back.  Consumers are more demanding and want content on the go.  They also want to be able to communicate and share, both opinion and content.  Social media is having a profound effect on how companies interact with consumers, how newspapers and media outlets get stories and how the customer is served.

Today, we live in a world where the audience wants ‘quality’ content that is either “free or cheap” and, as VivaKi’s Rishad Tobaccowala said, “the half life of data is minutes” as everything becomes “real-time”.

So there, go figure how to crack this one and bring the audience onside.  What I do know is that as a PR we need to learn quickly how to navigate this changing media landscape.

We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries.  Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture.  In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry.  But how wrong they appeared to have been.

If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job.  The fact is that while the decline in advertising has decimated newspapers and magazine, publishers have been fighting back, restructuring and getting their journalists to use social media and networking platforms not just for promoting content but for reaching out, developing contacts and finding great stories.

Professor George Brock opened the day with a series of seminal questions, is there such a thing as news, is authority in the crowd or the expert, does news stay in bundles and how do we [journalists] tell what is true?

Brock challenged the news model and gave examples of how outlets in the US are re-establishing themselves.  In his keynote speech he encouraged those present to not look at technology as the saviour of journalism, but to look backward and remember traditional journalism.

Using the 2009 Iranian election protests as an example Brock cited that while Twitter and video were important during the uprising, “it’s a less well known that one of the most effective ways of opposition ideas was slogans stamped on banknotes.”  He added that opposition messages were, “now stamped on so many banknotes that the governor or the Iranian Central Bank – not very sympathetic to the authorities – is in an argument with the authorities who want them removed from circulation.  Of course, in an economy you can’t just withdraw large numbers of banknotes [as] you will trigger an economic crisis.  So the message remains in circulation!”

Technology and social media platforms are tools that support communications.  They support journalism and public relations. BBC College of Journalism Editor Kevin Marsh highlighted how the BBC Newsroom had adopted web-centric journalism skills that allow engagement with its audience.  Something that I’ve written about before.

Kevin Marsh at news:rewired 2010 from BBC College of Journalism on Vimeo.

Marsh confirmed that new skills and platforms are just that, new.  They are there to back up traditional newsgathering skills such as organising an outside broadcast, gathering information from a court case or persuading people to talk and go on the record.

Seminars that took place confirmed that journalists have to learn and adapt to how people are moving online.  Journalists needed to pick up new skills on how multimedia newsrooms work, the power of social media for journalists, crowd-sourcing and data-mashing.

Content and stories are online and it’s a journalist’s job is to find and report them depending on their beat.  To use content to back up what contacts can provide.

But why is this so important to public relations professionals?  Why should this shift matter to those who build and shape brands and reputations?

In my opinion it matters a lot.  It matters because journalists are using citizens as an extension of their profession.  And citizens that are happy to contribute.  They are happy to be the eyes and ears on the ground.

During the crowd sourcing session tempers nearly got the better of some who objected to the term ‘citizen-journalists.’  Some attendees coined the term ‘eye-witness-journalists’ as professionals found it objectionable that people with no training described themselves as ‘journalists’.  While it was a very well argued point, the fact is that while many people can contribute to a story it is a trained journalist that can filter out the coal from the diamonds.

All this matters to PRs because people that unhappy customers can be found very easily.  Technology has herded people into online pens and it is the job of a good journalist to find them and work them into a story.

The same people want to receive their content through their social media platforms, online and on their mobiles.  The same devices that can now capture any bit of breaking news.

Of course journalists are learning on the go as the news and publishing industry moved online.  A channel where readers and viewers are less faithful.  Loyalty will depend on the speed at which content is updated.

Award-winning videojournalist and Southbank artist-in-residence David Dunkley Gyimah shows us what can be done and possibly what journalists should be.  Watching David confirmed that journalists might have to be multi-disciplined.

A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Journalism is evolving and the new technology that for so long had been blamed for its potential demise might in fact be its saviour.  And that is important for everybody, not just journalists, and not just PRs.

BBC Television Centre Newsroom

The BBC’s User-Generated-Content (UGC) unit will be celebrating its fifth birthday this summer.  Since it was set up in 2005, the unit has quietly been transforming how the BBC gathers and reports news.  The unit is now a hub of 23 journalists that sift through stories, pictures and videos sent in by people who either have a story to tell or find themselves at the centre of a newsworthy event.

Today the hub supports the corporation’s newsgathering process.  It links BBC News with its audience or rather the audience with the newsroom through the corporations own website, as well as through email, text and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.  On an average week the hub processes 50,000 email comments and contributions, 1,000 images and 100 video clips.

It works because people make it work and the BBC and its senior management understand the concept of citizen journalism.  They see their audience as an asset that can add value to the corporations newsgathering.  For the BBC journalism is now a two-way relationship where they engage with their audience and listen to what they are interested in.  The BBC brings them into the editorial process, allowing them to have a conversation of equals.  This allows ordinary citizens to drive content to experienced and trained journalists who cannot access countries and restricted stories, but can piece together information driven to them by people on the ground.

But how does the UGC hub work, what does it do and how does it corroborate fact from fiction from its contributors?

Thanks to the hub’s editor Matthew Eltringham I spent a day at the BBC in December learning how they work and support the corporation’s news outlets, leading them to win the ‘2009 News Award For Outstanding Contribution To BBC News.’

Located at the heart of the BBC Newsroom, the hub is like any other section, with desks, phones, Dell computers and monitors.  What makes the hub unique is that they are the first contact point for contributors and citizen journalists from around the world.  They allow people to engage and support the newsgathering process.  Once material is verified they’ll make it available internally to television and radio news programmes.

Each news outlet will have their presence online through either a page or blog on the BBC News site.  Some may also have a Twitter feed that they’ll use to reach out to their individual audience through which they can promote their work and content.  Individual journalists might also use and promote their work through their own Twitter feed.

But it was never as easy as it is today.  A number of years back I was told by a now senior BBC News executive of how respected television news personalities were opposed to writing a blog on the BBC’s own website that added insight and detail to 1 minute 30-second TV packages they put together.  They “felt that it devalued their experience and knowledge” and that if it wasn’t in their package it wasn’t important.  It is all very different today with Robert Peston and Nick Robinson amongst others viewing their blogs as central to their work.  In fact they see the blogs as another channel through which they promote their stories and a way of engaging with their respective audiences.

Today the hub works in three ways – it listens to chatter and gauges public reaction on the BBC’s own forums as well as social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it sends out requests for content (pictures, video and personal reaction) on breaking news stories through the BBC News website and its dedicated Twitter feeds and it filters and verifies content sent in by people.

Engaging with its audience

The BBC’s ‘Have Your Say’ section on the news site is a platform through which readers and viewers can share their thoughts on relevant newsworthy events.  There are around 345,000 registered users and contributors, but only a small number of these contribute on a regular basis.

With so many online registration systems in use the BBC is currently working on unifying these so that visitors to any BBC site – News, iPlayer, etc – need only one registration.  The intention is that by March 2010, BBC iD will be the single sign in for all BBC Online services.  I understand that the aim is for BBC iD to have a social media feel to it, so that users can list amongst other things their likes, comments and contributions – let it be views of programmes on iPlayer or comments or contributions they’ve made to BBC News stories.

The hub also monitors comments on its ‘Have Your Say’ forum and searches for reaction on networking sites such as Facebook.  An example of this was the coverage the BBC gave to how over 20,000 people joined a group on Facebook in support of Massimo Tartaglia, the individual who bloodied Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after a rally in Milan.

Requesting and searching for collateral

BBC One Ten O'Clock News

At a recent Chartered Institute of Public Relations Greater London Group event Nic Newman, the BBC’s Future Media and Technology Controller for Journalism and Digital Distribution, said that such has been the impact of social media that news outlets have reacted by abandoning attempts ‘to be first for breaking news, focusing instead on being the best at verifying and curating’ stories.

Depending on the newsworthiness of an event, the UGC hub will access a story on the BBC News website and add a form asking for pictures, video and comment from people caught up or affected by an event.  Staff on the hub will also put out requests through their central BBC newsgathering Twitter feeds.

For diarised stories such as conferences, the hub will set up a Twitter feed dedicated to that event.  For example, for the recent summit in Copenhagen Climate Change Conference they set up: twitter.com/BBC_cop15.  Requests for material and stories on breaking news stories will be pushed out through their twitter.com/BBC_HaveYourSay Twitter feed.

The level of response varies from story to story with people sending in comment, pictures and video through the BBC’s own website as well as email and sms/mms.

The BBC UGC hub is only responsible for the central newsgathering Twitter feeds.  It doesn’t manage the feeds of specific BBC News programmes, such as those for The Today Programme, Newsnight or BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive.  Each of these outlets is responsible for managing and communicating with their audience.  The BBC News Sports team manage their own social media channels, tools and communications.

Verifying content

BBC News - Get In Touch

Reporting accurate information is at the heart of every news organisation.  But as a public broadcaster the BBC is more accountable than other news outlets.  This is why it is the hub’s policy to verify all user-generated-content that they want to use and forward to other BBC news programmes.

Where appropriate staff on the hub will verify stories and images by speaking with the contributor by phone.  They will also check EXIF details of images that they want to use.

It is the policy of the hub to not pay for any image, exclusive or otherwise that is sent in or offered.  They would rather an independent agency buy the exclusivity and pay them usage rights.

Pictures used are credited to each contributor and meta-tags are added to images used online to support the BBC’s SEO.

The BBC has been setting the standards in newsgathering for many years.  It was one of the first news outlets to set up a website and was one of the first to recognise citizen journalism and use user-generated-content in its newsgathering. More recently they were the first mainstream media organisations to set up a dedicated team to manage user-generated-content.

In the next number of months the corporation will release it’s much anticipated iPhone app, which has been held up by legal wrangles with Apple.  The app though could well prove to be another tool in the corporation’s newsgathering armoury.

For far too long people have criticised the BBC for being too big and not delivering content.  Yet they are the first to reach out, engage with them and listen and use content they supply.

It is going to be an interesting year for media and news organisations and you can be sure that what the BBC have been pioneering will be replicated in other newsrooms around the world.