25 examples of best practice on BBC blogs

Photo of BBC Blogging Workshop by Robin Hamman. Used under licence.

Yes its a list. I started compiling this for internal usage to help the teams I work with but as the examples started to grow then i thought i might as well have it outside the firewall for posterity. This is probably part one. After all I haven’t mentioned Robert Peston yet.

Behind the scenes -  Posts explaining how BBC projects, programmes and services work:

Thankfully the BBC does a lot of this now. Here’s 10 examples but The Editors blog in News has published nearly 1400 posts about BBC journalism in its 2 and a half year history for example.

• “At Mashed in August 2008, we showed developers an internal research project called “BBC Redux.” Brandon Butterworth on a detailed history of the Redux Project and how it helped with adding streaming and new platforms to BBC iPlayer. (Oct 2008)
• A series of posts from Nick Reynolds and Tom Van Aardt highlighting the moderation problems posed by the increased popularity of the Strictly Come Dancing message board following the departure of John Sergeant.  What happened Part One | What happened Part Two
• We now have a number of “corporate” or blogs now for news, internet, red button, and radio/programmes technology. Here’s an example from BBC Sport;  “I want to explain how this year’s voting will work” - Director of Sport; Roger Mosey thinks out loud in the lead up to the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year bash. “Your choice has never been so difficult.” (Oct 2008)
• A great short post from Andrew Bowden with crucially 3-4 relevant photos explaining how our Red Button team are keeping across Digital Switch Off. “Welcome to Selkirk, West London”. (Oct 2008)
• “We’ve opted here, as we usually do, for ties where the lower division club is at home. “ Paul Armstrong, the editor of Match of the Day reveals how he choosed the games to broadcast live as part of the BBC/SKY FA Cup deal.
• “The attitudes and sensibilities of those entitled to a young person’s railcard are different from those carrying their pensioner’s bus pass.” Home affairs editor Mark Easton gives some social context to the Brand/Ross affair. | Rod McKenzie; the editor of R1’s Newsbeat similarly illustrates the difference in attitudes amongst young and old audiences of the BBC.
• A slight cheat as this is from the personal blog of a BBC staffer; Vision’s social media expert; Roo Reynolds; but these two posts are revealing insights into how the daily TV magazine show; The One Show is put together. Part One | Part Two
• “This morning we decided that this it was not the most important story of the day, and very deliberately decided to lead on the prime minister’s speech to the TUC.” Peter Horrocks, Head of the BBC Newsroom, discusses the BBC’s coverage of the McCann family when they returned from Portugal in Sep 2007.
• A series of posts from Jonathan Hassell; the BBC’s Head of Audience Experience and Usability, discusses how the BBC is grappling with making BBC iPlayer more accessible for the blind and partially sighted.
• “a social network and a blog provided a lot of added value and did indeed get me “closer” to the audience” Rory Cellan Jones; the BBC’s technology correspondent, explains how his use of social media tools helps his journalism.

Responding to users comments and online/offline feedback.

• The Editor of BBC News Online; Steve Hermann rounding up reaction from commenters to new features on the BBC News website introduced for the 2008 US Election.  (Oct 2008)
• “Last night on Newsnight, Dean Godson of the think tank Policy Exchange accused me personally  of making a “disastrous editorial misjudgement” and of “appalling stewardship of Newsnight”. Peter Barron, at the time; the Editor of Newsnight responds in a post published hours later.
• BBC radio technology boss; James Cridland talks through the radio integration into  BBC iPlayer and responds in detail to users three times in the comments. Under the iPlayer hood for radio.
• Danielle Nagler, the Controller of the BBC HD channel, writes a post entirely responding to users comments from previous blog posts about how the channel is scheduled and what programmes/events are/aren’t available and why.
• Ashley Highfield explains why, after a suggestion from a users comment he decided to do an interview with Groklaw; a website covering legal news of interest to the open source and free software community.

Curating comment and opinion from varied external sources. Linking and attributing them appropriately.

• The BBC Internet Blog does this well on a regular basis. See Alan Connor’s fine bi- weekly round ups of tweets, photos, links, presentations, video clips, press releases/articles, blog posts and overall negative/positive conversation about bbc.co.uk. October 28th | October 20th 2008 | October 14th 2008.
• The blog of the BBC North America editor; “Justin Webb’s America” had many pieces during/after the recent campaign where blog posts/press opinion/campaign or viral homemade/grassroots youtube clips were basis for his near daily commentary. Two quick examples: Linking to right wing blogs arguing that the media stole the election for Obama. | Citing commenters and linking to bloggers and columnists when McCain was considering postponing the campaign debates in September.
• Robin Hamman and Richard Fair’s Manchester blog was a year long experiment in curating the opinion and comment of Manchester bloggers hosted away from the BBC. A couple of sample posts:  Your reviews of the BBC Blogging Workshop | Round up of the Blogs
  

Special PM Section

Radio 4’s daily afternoon news programme; PM and now its sister programme iPM have long experimented with journalism using social media tools thanks  to the active engagement of its presenter; Eddie Mair and the pioneering work of reporter and presenter; Chris Vallance. A few examples:

• Hilda Gibson was a Land Girl during the war. Eddie plugged her interview in an initial blog post; “if you only listen to one thing in the programme tonight, please listen to this.” The overwhelming response from users and their comments led to six follow up posts, further appearances on the programme and and an opportunity for her to lobby a government minister on  iPM

• 22,000 users responded to a request to devise a mood map based on the question; “What single factor is hurting you most about the credit crunch? | The final maps.
• iPM received an email from a listener alerting them to the news that the exam authority AQA had axed a poem about knife crime from its curriculum. They blogged it and the story quickly went nationwide. The poet Carole Anne Duffy eventually responded by writing a poem attacking the invigilator and sharing it with The Guardian all before iPM even went to air.
• Blogging an interview and being open with their audio meant that this long conversation with UK home computer pioneer; Sir Clive Sinclair, was picked up Boing Boing.
• A series of pieces about gaming addiction where the call to action blog posts resulted in “dozens of thoughtful, sometimes moving comments” and also a number of contributors to several radio features across various BBC radio programmes and networks.

More on BBC Blogs:

• Robin Hamman’s blog; Cybersoc has dozens of excellent posts documenting the BBC’s blogging and its forays into social media at http://www.cybersoc.com/bbc/

Actually thats more than 25 or maybe its just 23. You never can tell with lists.