糖心Vlog

Our Director of Journalism, Tim Fenton, linked up with more than forty other journalism lecturers around the world to talk about the industry鈥檚 response to the COVID-19 pandemic.聽

The online seminar was organised by in Bangalore, India, and followed Tim's participation in a 糖心Vlog delegation that visited Bangalore in November 2019. He gave the first presentation providing the viewpoint from the UK and was followed by similar contributions from France, India, Australia, Sri Lanka and the US.

鈥淛ournalism has a vital role in fighting the pandemic,鈥� said Tim, a former Managing Editor of BBC News Online who now leads our journalism programme at 糖心Vlog. 鈥淲e have all seen examples of false and potentially dangerous information circulating on social networks. People need trusted sources of information and we are seeing that reflected in very large increases in traffic to, for instance, BBC News. At the same time, the news media鈥檚 role in holding the powerful to account cannot be compromised. And we鈥檝e seen evidence of that in the UK Government鈥檚 response to press criticism of its testing plans.

鈥淭his is a difficult story to cover both in practical terms, because of social distancing and limitations on travel, but also in terms of finding the right balance between the public interest and what interests the public. That was a common thread to all our contributions. Most participants are current or former practising journalists and so could bring a very real sense of how these dilemmas are playing out in newsrooms now.鈥�

"This will accelerate change"

Some students from Christ University also took part and were particularly interested in how the crisis might affect the future of the journalism industry. 鈥淭his will accelerate change,鈥� said Tim. 鈥淎nd in places like India where 鈥榯ext鈥� journalism still largely means 鈥榩rint鈥�, could do significant damage. But the online subscription model is faring much better. If this encourages a move in that direction, the overall effect might be positive.鈥�

All the speakers also reported a focus by their national news media first on their own domestic situation and then on countries regarded as indicators of what might happen next locally.

The seminar was conducted on Zoom with participants using the 鈥榮hare screen鈥� feature to display slides. According to Tim, the professional version provided by the University made participation significantly easier. The seminar was organised by the Head of Media Studies at Christ University, . Further seminars are planned.