ITN

Winners of the RTS Television Journalism Awards 2021 announced

The virtual celebrations were hosted by Mishal Husain, Presenter, BBC Radio 4 and BBC News at Ten.

This year, the ‘Judges’ Award’ was given to all the technical teams in recognition of the ingenuity, innovation and speed they demonstrated this year to keep journalism on the air.

How Safe Is Our News? | RTS London Convention 2024

With the relationship between news providers and tech platforms coming under increasing scrutiny from governments and regulators worldwide, is carefully produced news potentially being buried? With audiences increasingly online, does the right news reach them or could it be lost in a sea of misinformation, or not carried at all? Can we learn from global examples where policy has polarised the two groups – or can big tech and traditional news providers learn to work together?

Speakers:

Iain Bundred – Head of Public Policy for UK and Northern Europe, YouTube

Broadcasters and news providers aim to attract more senior staff of colour

A picture of Ronke Phillips, smiling

Opening the discussion, ITN CEO Rachel Corp said diversifying ITN had been hugely important for many years. She explained: “There are some great initiatives going on. I think everyone would agree that our newsrooms and our content are unrecognisable compared with not very long ago. But, clearly, there is stuff that needs to change.”

AI: opportunity knocks for news?

If you thought that AI is not yet having an impact on news organisations, think again. As panellist and data journalism pioneer Gary Rogers reminded this absorbing RTS discussion, “AI: the new frontier for journalism”, the Press Association’s Radar service – which he set up – has been using machine learning to create news stories for the past five years. Radar says it generates around 150,000 stories utilising local data journalism each year for clients across the UK.

AI: The New Frontier for Journalism

An RTS session considering the innovations and potential challenges of AI in journalism. We heard from organisations that are already using AI to work more efficiently and deliver more of what their audiences want, and got an understanding of what regulators are doing around the world to ensure that the technology contributes to the industry positively.

Hosted by Symeon Brown, Channel 4 News correspondent and host of AI Watch.

Panel:

Fiona Campbell relives key career moments

Campbell, who was promoted this year to Controller, Youth Audience, BBC iPlayer and BBC Three, recalled her move from researcher on the BBC Two business show The Money Programme, where she couldn’t see a way forward, to assistant producer on BBC One’s Watchdog.

“I was not passionate about consumer affairs journalism, but that job was an opportunity to move on and break out,” she said.

Stewart Purvis' TV Diary

There’s a weekend call-up for the Dad’s Army of “BBC crisis” pundits. “Linekergate” is the 60th on the Wikipedia list of “BBC controversies”, and Mark Damazer, Richard Ayre, Roger Mosey, Roger Bolton and I are on parade across the nation’s various air-waves untangling “another fine mess”.

The BBC’s football pundits and most of the commentators have walked out over the suspension of Gary Lineker for allegedly breaching the BBC guidelines on tweeting.