2011 awards night
The “exciting, liberating potential” of social media formed the keynote theme of the 2011 Kurt Schork awards night, held in London on 17 November.
An audience of journalists, commissioning editors, media savvy academics, students and others interested in news reporting gathered at the event, hosted by Thomson Reuters at its prestigious Canary Wharf centre, to celebrate the awards’ 10th anniversary.
Winner of the local reporter award, Gertrude Pswarayi (Zimbabwe) was unable to travel to London for the occasion, but the freelance award winner Jerome Starkey (UK) flew back from Afghanistan in time to receive his prize in person, from KSMF’s vice president, Stephen Jukes. Starkey is currently The Times’ stringer in Afghanistan and won for two stories about the conflict there plus a report on ferrying supplies to rebels in Misrata, Libya.
Jerome also joined the evening’s panel, chaired by broadcaster Sheena McDonald, to discuss the strong impact of social media not only on world events but also on the way journalists now work. The other panellists were Mohamed Yehia, Arabic Programmes Editor at the BBC; John Pullman, Head of News Output, TV, for Thomson Reuters; and Allan Little, BBC’s special correspondent.
Significant change
All the panellists agreed that social media was significantly changing professional newsgathering. With video clips to illustrate the theme, the panel charted how social media had not only driven a lot of events around the “Arab Spring” earlier in the year, but also how traditional news media organisations had often had to draw on amateur footage (from mobile phones and small camcorders) to show what was happening in Bahrain, Syria and other countries, because professional video teams had not had access.
Mohamed Yehia spoke of how “amazing” footage had come from many Egyptian cities, not only Cairo, and had helped to build a bigger, better picture of what was happening with protests around the country. Both he and John Pullman outlined the verification problems faced by media companies in seeking to ensure the footage they received was accurate and genuine. Asked by Sheena whether that was very time consuming, John Pullman agreed it was but said that it was important to undertake such checks as by using such video organisations like the BBC and Thomson Reuters were giving it the “stamp of credibility”.
Allan Little spoke of the potential problem, currently seen to a greater extent in the United States, in his view, than in Britain, of people tending to follow those sources that confirmed their views rather than participating in a genuinely-shared information space. “There is a danger we will disappear into the ghettos of our own views.” However, that concern and other concerns about the balance and veracity of amateur coverage, shouldn’t get in the way of “our great excitement at the liberating potential of social media.”
Jerome Starkey said there was a strong twitterati community in Afghanistan and after he had got to know whose tweets were reliable, he had found it a very quick way of getting eye-witness accounts and updates on events.
Democratising effect
Mohamed Yehia observed that a new form of journalism was emerging which was very enabling and exciting. John Pullman agreed and thought it would lead to a “flowering” of journalism in the Middle East, as amateur reporters became increasingly experienced and began adopting professional techniques. For instance, many now held up pieces of paper showing date, time and place, at the start of filming on their mobiles, so that viewers would know instantly where and when the footage was taken.
The panel’s overall conclusion was that, in the way it gave previously powerless people a means of expression and connection, social media had a great democratising effect and fears about its misuse should not blind us to its liberating possibilities.
A decade of change
Earlier in the evening Stephen Jukes had charted the changes since the awards were launched ten years ago – before the advent of social media, before 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before the Arab Spring. Even then the Fund had been concerned about how the work of freelance journalists and local reporters was undervalued.
Now, a decade later and with media organisations around the world cutting back their coverage budgets in the face of financial problems, freelance and local reporters had never been more important – and the Fund was pleased to continue working to bring them recognition.
He then raised the question: how would Kurt have coped with social media?
Answering this, Tony Borden, Executive Director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), concluded that Kurt would have done very well on Twitter and other social media outlets – and would have been very pleased to credit or share new media platforms with local voices, whether professional journalists or not.