A Case for Government Sponsored News

Every day, while walking to work, I listen to the BBC’s World News podcast.  While it is easy to argue that no single news source is perfect, and it is even easier to argue that some sort of bias exists in all reporting, I am always impressed by the range of topics covered by the BBC and the sometimes aggressive stance it’s reporters take when interviewing less than forthcoming guests.

Not only is the BBC news far-ranging and challenging, it is paid for by the people of the United Kingdom.  From the BBC website:

If you have a colour TV at home, the TV licence fee this year is £131.50. If your TV is black and white, it’s £44.00. People aged 75 pay no fee, some pensioners and disabled people pay a £5 fee, and registered blind people get a 50% discount.

In fact, this money goes to more than news programming, but I want to focus on that element for a moment.

What would happen if the US created a tax-supported news organization with the sort of charter used by the BBC?  That charter gives the BBC complete editorial autonomy, although some have questioned the degree of that autonomy.  As a daily BBC listener, I have to say they do not seem to go easy on the UK government or the Royal Family.  By the way, you can read the whole charter here.

Sure, it might be insane for me to think the government could really just fund a news organization with tax payer money and not expect endless backlash from every fringe group in the known universe complaining that, now that they are paying they want “x” topic covered more and “y” topic never mentioned again – but maybe not.

It also might be crazy to expect that a government-sponsored news agency could be truly autonomous but look at our current news sources – CNN, FoxNews, etc. – and tell me those feel truly autonomous from their corporate owners.

Therefore, maybe it isn’t so crazy to consider a US version of the BBC.  It would certainly help keep hundreds of reporters and journalists from losing their jobs and maybe, free from the need to please advertisers with massive eyeball counts, it would allow for news beyond what Britney Spears did in London or what Rush Limbaugh thinks of killing abortion doctors.

BBC Makes (small) Bold Step in P2P Open Distribution

The BBC is doing something pretty exciting, on a very small scale.

They have decided to release a new show called “R&D TV” wide across the internet AND they’re releasing it under a Creative Commons license!

As the accompanying Read Me file (complete with the old-school ASCII BBC logo) says, “you can watch, rip, redistribute and remix all the contents of this package.” As long as you don’t try making money from the videos, you’re set.

That would be exciting all on its own but BBC is taking things even futher:

To make it easier for people to play around with the contents, they’re also packaged in what’s termed an asset bundle, which includes separate files for each of the segments, as well as some metadata.

The idea is that providing more ways for people to view and interact with a show might actually be a way to create more fans.  Crazy, right?  Of course not.  In fact, it is the first completely legit attempt I have seen from a major broadcaster to fully leverage the power of P2P file-sharing and the remix culture of the modern age.

If the show turns out to be a success, look for more offerings from the Beeb under CC licenses and more fun for everyone out their in viewer-land.

LINK

Service Journalism – History of Piracy

Once again, TorrentFreak is the place to be for all your torrent info needs.  Today they link to a BBC podcast that traces the history of piracy right up to the present:

“The BBC has published a podcast which takes a look at piracy through the ages, also covering the modern concept of ‘intellectual property’. Of course, no story of piracy would be complete without discussing The Pirate Bay so Peter Sunde also plays a significant part in this 20 minute program.”

Here is a link to the podcast which is, as TF points out is, “provided free of charge, without DRM, and in convenient MP3 format. How media should be.”

Amen.

BBC and Wii Losing to Pirates

Two separate stories highlight the difficult, and I would argue pointless, attempts by various companies to impose either DRM or other locks that make it impossible for end-users to have complete control over the date or hardware they’ve gotten.

First, DownloadSquad has the story on the BBC:

“The release of BBC’s new iPlayer brought with it the typical suffocating DRM restrictions, with the typical amount of outrage in the blogosphere. 

However, when the BBC released the new beta iPlayer software that allowed users to view BBC streams on their iPhone, the streams made for the iPhone didn’t didn’t include any DRM. Certain intrepid programmers and users were quick to jump on the fact that the iPhone streams were unencrypted. One user was able to use a PC to watch the unencrypted streams by using the Firefox plugin Fast Agent Switcher to convince the iPlayer that it was an iPhone. Developer Paul Battleyreleased a Ruby script to download the iPhone formatted files to your PC. 

In response, the BBC iPlayer took countermeasures to block the streams from non-iPhone devices. Just yesterday, in fact. 

In response to the response, and after a mere 24 hours, users again figured out a few ways to watch the iPlayer iPhone streams without an iPhone.”

Next, BoingBoing has news on the the now completely cracked WII:

“The locks on the Nintendo Wii have been comprehensively broken. Now, just by loading some code onto an SD card and sticking it into your Wii, you can unlock your console so that it will play homebrew games written by anyone, not just big companies that have paid big license fees to Nintendo!”

It’s amazing how much money these corporations are spending to stop these actions and how quickly and completely they are failing.  How much longer will they keep it up?  And what will happen when they finally admit defeat? 

Citizen Journalists Keep on Coming

There is a little bit of news, and a promise of more to come, over at Beet.TV about CNN’s latest UGC news effort: 

“Long providing an opportunity for viewers to send in videos, text messages, camera phone videos, comments and photos through an area called iReport, CNN.com has launched a true consumer generated news portal.  It has its own url as ireport.com” 

And PSFK has a cool post about a project run by the BBC to get young people into becoming reporters: 

“News School Report is the BBC’s initiative to encourage 11-14-year-olds to become interested in journalism and the news. The BBC offers children fromUK schools the chance to make their own video, audio or text-based news at school and to broadcast it for real, with the website becoming a live channel for one day. Launched last year with 120 schools and 3,000 students participating, the successful initiative streamed nine hours of school-based activities and pupils’ news reports, and this year has involved more than 10,000 students from over 250 schools across the country who are all readying themselves for their deadline- of 2pm GMT today, 13th March. ” 

This sort of stuff just gets me excited.  Just think about how many cameras are out there – and the number must be growing exponentially.  It is going to become very hard to hide from view.  While we all worry about whether “Big Brother” is watching, I have a feeling the real threat/reward will come from millions of “Little Brothers” all over the world.And the world will be watching.  

Brits Rule Reality

Just read about a new show debuting on BBC America and I just had to share.  According to Salon, the new show is called “Dumped”

“Most of the eager contestants assume they’ll be flying abroad, perhaps to a remote island or a tropical rain forest to do something good for the earth while experiencing the glories of its natural wonders. They wish. The group travels by bus to a dump outside Croydon in South London, where they’ll spend the next three weeks living off the junk that their fellow Brits have thrown away.”

Sadly, they are given a few niceties like fresh food and toilet paper but I think it is a good thing to see people pushing the envelope when it comes to “green” entertainments.  So far, most of the efforts have felt too earnest or too pedantic.  Haven’t seen this one yet, so the jury is still out, but I do like the trend.

Facebook Obituaries Being Written

Sure, it could just be a swipe at a giant, but Scoble is no slouch himself so when he asks if Facebook is doomed, it’s probably worth taking note.

Among his issues:

“As much as I like Mark Zuckerberg, I can not recommend Facebook to anyone until they fix this problem. There’s ABSOLUTELY NO WAY someone’s account should be deleted without recourse, if Facebook wants to be seen as a utility.”

And he’s not the only one.  Over at the BBC:

“Facebook – it’s so over. That’s been the tenor of most of the commentary since Thursday’s figures showing a slight dip in Facebook’s UK users. The general feeling is that the kids, with their minute attention spans, have already tired of the social networking site and moved on to something more hip and happening. I think the opposite is true – that Facebook’s new wave of older users have decided it is just not worth the bother and are now leaving it to the kids.”

Now, it may be true that Facebook is dying, though I think it might be a bit soon to dig the grave.  However, the more interesting question is who is going to be next to grab the brass ring.  Will there be yet another “facebook” or are we witnessing the end of the massive social network to be replaced by niche networks all somehow linked together into a larger web…oh, like the internet!