vicky taylor

Vicky started the session with two videos highlighting user-submitted media that the BBC made use of in an interesting way:

• Burma Crisis: Citizen journalists were writing an "alternative Narrative" to official propaganda in Burma.
• Floods in the UK in 2007 were the biggest story that BBC Interactive Covered. Received thousands of photos and hundreds of video. This was showcased on a Google Map were coverage was embedded.

  Her interactive team consists of 13 journalists who work 24/7 and are dedicated to multiple BBC channels and platforms. They receive pictures/videos and then sift, verify and authenticate them against established journalistic standards. They then decide if these pictures could be used on the BBC platform. To ensure quality you need to invest - this isn't a way to cut costs.

  She refers to interesting research that was done for the BBC on trust and authority regarding user-contributed content. Around 1000 people were asked what they thought of user-generated content. The findings?

  • The public is in favour of it but are in favour of it being vetted first from someone.

  • A large number of people understood user-generated content and participation - but many didn't know how to participate.
  • 1/5 people polled have contributed to a news event in a fairly traditional manner - e-mail or phone in.

  Those are pretty encouraging statistics...