I know that user generated content has become the holy grail for programme makers. If nothing else it’s passable and dirt cheap. News programmes love to feature viewer’s photos. ITN even reads out the texts during the bulletins. BBC three got rid of its fantastic blobs to replace them with true pap.
There is one upside to the user generated content however. People have a great sense of humour and Photoshop is a wonderful tool.
Yes, once again a major news network has been caught napping when determining which photos to allow onto its site. This time, according to Popbitch, Maddie McCann has appeared in the crowds watching the Olympic Torch.
Popbitch has been nice and not named the organisation. But it is a little reminiscent of the recent snow storms that hit the UK. Another network similarly asked for photos. And got… stills from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and pictures of polar bears.
Seriously though. The news is there to be informative and give expert opinion. Yes there is new technology and the web means that we can simply go to the Guardian / BBC / Times web pages but by giving a voice to the lowest common denominator you will be losing long term credibility.
2 responses so far ↓
Bendal, Alan // April 24, 2008 at 8:18 pm
The ‘merking’ as it’s so called of Sky News and BBC websites has brought me much amusement over the past few months, with more outlandish pictures being produced by the day to test if they were actually being moderated before being added to the site, which they often werent! Impossible sightings of the PedoBear on many of the pictures were hilarious, as many kids will tell you; you never see the PedoBear coming!
robashwell20 // April 24, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Hi Alan
I doubt they’re moderated for anything other than really obvious porn which is almost certainly done by computer anyway.
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