Friday, April 28, 2006

BBC ANCHOR STRESSES MEDIA'S `GATEKEEPING' RESPONSIBILITY

Taipei, April 27 (CNA) The media should accommodate itself to modern technology and "citizen journalism, " while still being accountable to its "gatekeeping" responsibility, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) anchor Nik Gowing said in Taipei Thursday.

Because of modern technology such as mobile phones, handycams and the Internet, there is much more first-hand information coming to the media directly from citizens. The media needs to move with this trend but should still check and validate sources, said Gowing.

Gowing, who was invited by the British Chamber of Commerce in Taipei to deliver a speech at its monthly luncheon, has been the main anchor on BBC World, the BBC's 24-hour international TV news and information channel, since 1996.

In covering the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina's damage in the United States and the London Underground bombing, the media resorted to citizens to provide first-hand information and observations, he said, adding that following the bombings in London, the BBC received more than 1,000 images, 20 video clips, 3,000 text messages and 20,000 emails from London citizens relating to the
event.

Nowadays, he said, citizens often provide more information following major news events than the media, which in turn provides more information than government agencies most of the time.

"The job of people like me or other BBC staff is to check and validate, " Gowing said. "The media needs to produce real-time reports and react quickly, but we'd rather wait a little bit longer before reporting as the validation is going on," he said.

News reporting today has "higher impact and shorter time frame" because of the information explosion and development of technology, which makes it even more important for the media to provide correct reporting, Gowing said.