- Jonathan Baker
- 8 Dec 06, 04:30 PM
There's been a lot of hullabaloo about 麻豆社 pay rates this year, both salaries for on-air talent () and executive bonuses (). So I suppose it's not surprising that the figures revealed in the press today about correspondents' salaries ("" - Independent) are of interest too, although they are of a rather more modest order.
I'm one of those who has to set those salaries, and there are always many factors to take into consideration. These include experience, level of contribution to the news output, performance and profile. The hardest area to put your finger on is talent - that element of individuality, personality and star quality which people bring to the air waves. Difficult to define and subjective perhaps - but you know it when you see and hear it.
One thing that absolutely isn't a factor is the sex of the correspondent. The figures might seem to point that way, but I think it's more that they reflect that a majority of our senior correspondents are men, with a high level of experience. Which is an issue in itself.
Jonathan Baker is deputy head of Newsgathering
- David Kermode
- 8 Dec 06, 04:00 PM
Heading home last night, I felt guilty about two things.
Having read all the comments in response to my blog, I'd chosen to ignore the postings about the irritation felt by some of our viewers about presenters 'chatting'.
This theme crops up from time to time. So what I should really have said is that I make no apology for it. It's about tone, it's about us feeling 'real' in the morning, rather than feeling 'sterile' (which used to be a regular complaint). I'm sorry if it irritates, but I think it's key to the warmth of our show. I suspect this is a hornet's nest, which is why I chose not to address it yesterday. But that was probably a mistake, so there you go.
The second thing? I was accused of 'announcing' our decision to go early with decorations, rather than blogging for opinion. This is probably a fair point, but we were responding to the sheer number of e-mails and texts we'd already received to the programme site.
Anyway, I feel better now.
PS: I have received a bauble from the editor of GMTV, who tells me it was left over from his grotto. This is very kind of him, but I would have preferred some of the money he chucks at his viewers each morning to persuade them to watch.
I feel much better now.
David Kermode is editor of
- Peter Rippon
- 8 Dec 06, 03:55 PM
The great PM programme 'Window on your World at 5' event took place this week. There is now a really enthusiastic web community on the PM Blog and we thought it would be fun to give people a chance to do more than just blog.
We asked people to take a photograph of what they could see as PM came on air last Tuesday. We were completely overwhelmed by the response. We expected to get a few hundred sent in. We got thousands. It's going to take us ages to put them all up. Thank you to all who took part. It is oddly profound and humbling to see so many people in the mundane act of choosing to listen to us.
Peter Rippon is editor of World at One, PM and Broadcasting House
- Mike Rudin
- 8 Dec 06, 02:43 PM
Conspiracies are everywhere. They have well and truly entered the mainstream.
But in an age when official sources of information are , can the 麻豆社 be trusted to report conspiracy theories?
I certainly was daunted, as well as excited, when I started producing a series for 麻豆社 Two called The Conspiracy Files.
The very words we use to describe conspiracies and conspiracy theories are highly charged. Calling anything a conspiracy theory is, to some, a criticism.
Conspiracy theorists have been criticised for not understanding how history works, looking for the hidden hand of some secret power behind every event and every high-profile death. Real life, or so the conventional wisdom has it, is always much more complex and random.
The final insult to conspiracists is that when a conspiracy theory turns out to be true, it is hastily redefined by many people as investigative journalism. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the like are just good stories.
But what is the dictionary definition of conspiracy? Should people be nervous about being called conspiracy theorists? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a conspiracy as simply 鈥渁n agreement to perform an illegal or wrongful act鈥. According to that definition in recent years we have had more than our fair share of real conspiracies. Not much to be nervous about there.
The first programme in the series, , will be broadcast this Sunday at 9pm on 麻豆社 Two. Certainly as soon as I started to delve into what really happened in , I was right away impressed with just how little I knew and how many valid questions there were with the official version.
Sceptics have raised important criticisms of the original French investigation 鈥 how the crash scene was handled, and how crucial forensic information was analysed, to mention just two.
In an opinion poll for our programme, carried out by GfK NOP, we found out just how little confidence there is in the official version.
There is no question in my mind that the issues and the conspiracy theories should be investigated by the 麻豆社. Watch the programme on Sunday and see if we were up to the challenge.
The Conspiracy Files series returns in the New Year to examine the conspiracies surrounding the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma bomb, and the death of Dr David Kelly.
Mike Rudin, series producer of Who's Watching You and The Conspiracy Files
- Alistair Burnett
- 8 Dec 06, 02:17 PM
If the people who contribute to The World Tonight's Listener Debate are anything to go by, most of our listeners are very doubtful of the wisdom of the government's decision this week to renew Britain's nuclear weapons system, Trident.
Polls on the issue have suggested the general public are more sanguine about the government's plans, and over the next few months there will be consultation and then a vote in Parliament. Although, with the main parties all generally in favour of retaining a nuclear capability, it seems unlikely our listeners will be happy with the outcome of this process.
My colleague Nick Robinson blogged earlier this week on the way the government has said it wants to take this decision in an open and transparent manner, so I won't add any more to that.
But listening to the former head of the British Army, General Sir Michael Jackson, on the Today programme on Thursday, I was struck by the lack of consensus in the armed forces on the need for Britain to have nuclear weapons.
Gen Jackson argued that the uncertain nature of future threats means we should keep our nukes. Last Friday on The World Tonight, we spoke to the former head of ordnance for the army, General Sir Hugh Beach, who told us that the money should be spent on making the armed forces fit to face the threats we know about and face now.
In the post-Cold War world, our government has used our armed forces more and more to intervene abroad to stabilise countries, as in Sierra Leone; or to stop a state from attacking its own citizens, as in Serbia; or to disarm and remake a state our government see as hostile to our interests, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. General Beach argued that the armed forces do not have enough of the right equipment to do these things and the money that is spent on strategic nuclear weapons would be better spent on such things as helicopters and ground attack aircraft.
So the military men seem as divided as the public and politicians on this one which makes reflecting the various views in this debate a particular challenge.
As for our listener who asked why Britain has a 'strategic nuclear deterrent' while other countries have 'weapons of mass destruction' that's another area where consensus is difficult to find...
Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight
- Peter Barron
- 8 Dec 06, 11:23 AM
Jasper Gerard in the Observer . "Leave us some moron-free zones," he wrote of our Oh My Newsnight experiment, which invited viewers to send us their short films. I'm not sure if he thinks his readers are morons too, but it's certainly one way of getting rid of them.
He was of course referring to Jeremy Paxman's viral marketing masterstroke of last week (you can watch it here). Until that point business had indeed been a little slow, but following in the Daily Telegraph, among others, contributions have rolled in and we can now present the shortlisted lucky 13.
As far as I can see there's not a funny animal or a moron among them.
There is fascinating stuff about cocaine making in Colombia, refugees returning to Northern Cyprus and how hard it is to find a paperboy in modern Britain.
You can watch them here, vote for your favourite and tell us what you think. The winners will be shown in a special moron-free zone at the end of the programme in January.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
Daily Mirror and others: George Bush and 麻豆社's Nick Robinson clash at White House news conference. ()
Independent: 麻豆社 gender salary disparity revealed. ()
Daily Mail: Lord Puttnam expresses interest in succeeding Michael Grade ()
Daily Mail: Roy Hattersley advises new 麻豆社 chairman 'not to underestimate the inclinations of the viewing public'.
The 麻豆社 is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
