25 June 2010
The AIB is proud to announce that the judges announced today for the 2010 AIBs come from 18 countries in 5 different continents, reinforcing the truly international character of the awards. The 29 judges will be working hard and independently of any commercial interest. Over the summer they will assess the shortlisted entries in fifteen different categories, from single news events to cross-media productions, from the new children’s factual programming award to best creative feature, and from creative marketing strategy to most innovative technology.
The full press release can be seen here and biographical details of the judges, together with photos, can be accessed here.
The sixteenth category at the awards is the People’s Choice of best TV coverage of climate change. This will not be assessed by the judges but the winner will be chosen by the votes of online viewers. We will be publishing details of the viewing and voting procedures in the next few weeks.
4 June 2010
Because the AIBs (international media excellence awards) this year include a People’s Choice category for the best TV coverage of climate change, I have been looking at the online coverage on this subject and the wide range of different views expressed. It is a fascinating subject because of the way it affects, or may affect, different nations and peoples around the world (listen, for example to an interview with a campaigner from Samoa talking about climate justice) and also because of the widely differing views on the subject from fervent climate change disbelievers (e.g. Watts Up with That) to those who have made careers out of propounding manmade climate change (e.g. Al Gore)
But it is interesting to see other angles taken on climate change – from Ecological Buddhism’s view of the morality of mankind treating nature as a resource to be cared for, through those who care passionately about the effect on people living at the margins (see Oxfam’s website, for example) to those who focus on green technologies as business opportunities as well as necessary for our future (e.g. Clean Technology Business Review).
If you do not have a set viewpoint, it is difficult to make sense of all the conflicting claims and studies. Thank goodness for sites like “Information is beautiful”, in particular the blog post putting arguments from opposing views on climate change side by side with the data graphed inbetween. It is a really useful infographics tool to allow readers to make informed decisions themselves.
It can be difficult to make up your mind on the arguments, but once you have, you can be sure of finding a group who is championing the point of view on which you decide.
21 May 2010
The AIBs’ new People’s Choice category, focused this year on programmes dealing with climate change, is limited to television programmes. This is because, unfortunately, it is difficult to ask an international audience to judge radio programmes because of language barriers. At least with television we can (and will) provide subtitles in a range of languages for the programs to be chosen by popular vote, and the online viewers can see the original output and understand the way that the story is treated. With radio, in order to convey the quality of a programme, a translation has to be very precise and convey the original intonation and expression. We hope that AIB members and other colleagues working in radio will forgive us that we were not able to include radio this year.
This is a pity since there are many good examples of radio programmes dealing with climate change. Only this week it was possible to hear:
- Vatican Radio reporting on Pope Benedict XVI expressing serious concern for the plight of herders in Mongolia, where extreme weather conditions threaten the livelihood of hundreds of thousands. The Pope stated that “environmental issues, particularly those related to climate change, are global issues and need to be addressed on a global level”
- Vermont Public Radio (VPR) on the effects of climate change at Lake Champlain, which now often fails to freeze over in winter. This visible result brings home the reality of the changes to local people. While it causes problems, Curt Stager of Paul Smith’s College in the northern Adirondacks points out “It’s a mix of good news and bad news in a way. The bad news is that climate change is likely to amplify some of our existing environmental problems. And the good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to deal with that.”
- MetadelPlaneta, the first radio programme in Mexico about climate change, appealing for funds
- an online podcast about Project Survival Pacific, discussing the danger to low-lying islands in the Pacific of rising sea levels and how the islanders are reacting
However, there were claims that the 4th International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the Heartland Institute was not given coverage by the media. But you can catch up here to see video and audio of the conference as it is posted.
The programmes mentioned above show how radio broadcasts can bring to life personal stories of how climate affects individuals all over the world. But the continuing wide divergence of views about what change is happening, what causes it, how damaging it is and what we should do, still challenges the listeners ability to put facts into perspective and broadcasters ability to shed light.
7 May 2010
The new People’s Choice award in this year’s AIBs is very exciting for a number of reasons. It is the first time we are asking the general public to vote for awards, which allows the shortlisted entrants to gain a wider exposure for their programmes, as viewers will come from throughout the world, including many countries where the programmes are not currently broadcast. The voting process will also use social media to gain interest and attention, providing another example of the sort of audience engagement and participation which is becoming more and more important to broadcasting in the 21st century.
In addition climate change, the subject of programmes in the People’s Choice award, is a highly topical subject which provokes fierce debate and raises issues which could have a dramatic impact on the way that all nations live. Different countries, and even different tribes and regions within countries, risk being affected in different ways. For example, the indigenous people of the Amazon risk their lands turning into dry savanna (see here for how our sponsor, ADB, is helping the Surui tribe) while the coastal regions risk more flooding.
Because of the differing risks, as well as different political viewpoints, the range of views on climate change is enormous and the challenges of exploring and explaining the science are great. We hear about the fierce debates in the US Senate ; India and China are signing up to the Copenhagen accord; a survey in Africa shows that many Africans blame God and not global emissions for climate change; countries as diverse as Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Madagascar show increasing awareness by joining in Earth Day celebrations.
We are eager to see the submissions for the People’s Choice award to see how broadcasters from throughout the world are tackling this contraversial issue which raises such passion and which is so important to all of our futures.
4 May 2010
The AIB is enthusiastic about the possibilities for social media tools such as Twitter and Ushahidi to enhance news reporting and the creation of factual programming. We have already seen Twitter used for breaking news in countries from Haiti to Ukraine (and I am hearing about some interesting tools being developed to analyse Tweets to discover changing opinions – I will be giving more details when we are allowed to). They are also great tools for promoting broadcasts and we will be using them extensively to publicise the People’s Choice award in this year’s AIBs.
However, I remain to be convinced about Twittermedia‘s enthusiasm for the new ability to be able easily to enter Tweets in a news story. They highlight ReadWriteWeb’s story on HP and Palm as a great way to convey reactions to a story without having quotes from different people spread round a story. While it is great to be able to provide accurate quotes and Twitter helps in this, a key role of journalism and factual broadcasting is to provide a context and develop a story around individuals’ comments. I hope that we do not see the rise of articles which rely just on picking out a number of Tweets without explaining them and referring as well to those who are not Twittering (yes, they still exist).
