The BBC is gearing up for a multi-front battle that will see it leaning into AI and UK-centric algorithms, commercial partnerships with deep-pocketed tech companies, and a “progressive” licence fee.
“Disinformation Correspondent” is surely a top contender in the Orwellian job title stakes. The BBC’s Marianna Spring has “and Social Media” tagged on, but that’s not her focus. Social media, as she explains in this disturbing book, is just the vehicle for spreading unfounded scare stories, half-baked pseudoscience, racist bigotry and unadulterated hate.
Spring, winner of the RTS Television Journalism Awards 2023 Innovation prize, has delved deep in the cesspool of disinformation and unearthed some of the mad, bad and sad characters who inhabit the cyber underground.
Tim Davie, Director-General at the BBC, sets out the blueprint for the future direction of the BBC and its role for the UK at an RTS event.
Davie discussed AI and UK-centric algorithms, commercial partnerships with tech companies, and a “progressive” licence fee.
Following the keynote, Davie answered questions from the audience, chaired by Martha Kearney.
The event took place at the IET London on Tuesday 26 March.
The year 1968 was marked by student unrest on British campuses, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in Birmingham. It was also the year that, on a midweek night in late July, saw the debut of a deceptively unassuming and nostalgic English TV sitcom. Dad’s Army was destined to become a classic of the genre. Even at the time, the show seemed to belong to a totally different and more reassuring world to the one erupting outside our front doors.
Now, one studio album, one Queen of the Jungle crown, several presenting gigs and a decade and a half later, it is her tidying talents which have led to her dream show - Sort Your Life Out.
Solomon’s love for organisation derives from a need for it - becoming a mother at 17 meant it was a necessity: “as soon as I had Zach, I was like, I've got to get my shit together. Because I'm living on a fish and chip shop wage, with working tax credits.
This time round, contestants will be racing across 15,000km of Eastern Asia. Starting in Japan, five duos will travel through nine countries and six seas, finishing in Lombok, Indonesia. To get there, contestants will have to make their way around the ring of fire, famous for its volcanoes and earthquakes.
Through it all, they will have no access to their smartphone, bank cards or the internet.
Find out more about the racers below.
More than 1,600 tickets were sold for the RTS Futures Careers Fair in Islington, London, in early February – a record number for an in-person fair. The fair welcomed close to 50 industry exhibitors, while at the CV clinic more than 350 attendees had their CVs tweaked by media professionals and 100 TV experts offered advice in the “ask me anything” area.
She wasn’t exaggerating. The same profile noted that, of the 14,488 messages marked for review by the BBC’s online abuse monitoring system (between 1 January and late June in 2023), 11,771 were directed at the broadcaster’s Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent.
It’s a tragic irony of the job that, by investigating cases of online hate you inevitably become the victim of one. And yet Spring refuses to back down from this new virtual front line, ie, her inbox.
We Go Again (working title) features three siblings striving for optimism while concealing a dark secret.
When their mother disappears, the siblings will do anything to outmanoeuvre the authorities to stay away from social services and stay together as a family.
Described as “an irreverent portrait of black working-class teenage life”, the six-part drama explores growing up through council estates, big dreams, and with “thumping great heart.”
Lou Wood stars as Evie, who hosts a film club for her friend Tom every Thursday at 9.00pm. Each week, she transforms her garage into the perfect setting to watch the film of choice – for Wizard of Oz, a yellow brick road, for Alien, a spacecraft. She tells herself it’s because she loves the movies, but she is secretly harbouring a love for Tom.
