Professor Alfred Hermida’s research paper for Journalism Practice on blogging at the BBC is available online.
“The Blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at ‘the world’s most trusted news organisation’” has been posted online months ahead of the print edition of the journal via Taylor & Francis’ iFirst online publication system. The iFirst system “makes new knowledge available to researchers in the shortest possible time.”
The study explores how the BBC sought to normalize the emergent media format of blogging to conform with established professional values of impartiality and accuracy.
Prof Hermida found that senior BBC correspondents have embraced the notion of the blog as a delivery system for journalistic elements that do not fit within established broadcast news, seeing blogging as a way to offer content that complements broadcast output, albeit in a more personal and informal tone.
But the study indicates that BBC News has been less adept at incorporating the conversational and social nature of blogging, a shortcoming acknowledged by BBC editors.
The full paper is available to subscribers with electronic access to Journalism Practice but here’s the abstract:
Blogging has shifted from an activity largely taking place outside established media to a practice appropriated by professional journalists. This study explores how BBC News has incorporated blogging in its journalism, looking at the internal debates that led to the adoption of blogs and charting how they became a core part of the corporation’s news output. Using a case study approach, it examines the impact of blogging on BBC editorial values and considers how journalists have sought to maintain their authority in a digital media environment by integrating a new form of journalism within existing norms and practices. The BBC offers a unique case study as its long-standing editorial values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness appear at odds with the notion of blogs as immediate, uncensored and unmediated. The research reveals that blogs emerged initially as an activity peripheral to the main newsgathering functions of the organisation and were rapidly transformed into key mechanisms for communicating analysis and commentary to the public. It contends that, for now, blogging has had a greater impact on the style, rather than substance, of BBC journalism. While the systems whereby journalists deliver information have evolved, the attitudes and approaches have, so far, remained relatively static.
