Updating Blog – losing Chinese

I've jsut updated my blog, from the old Blogger to the Google Account thingamy. Fairly painless. All I had to do was re-order the sidebar, and retype the one bit of Chinese here, the link to Heather's blog. The Chinese doesn't look as clear as before, at least on Mac OS X.
Otherwise, all good.

Little Star -- good documentary on RTE R1

I've a backlog of Documentary on One podcasts -- that's from RTE Radio 1. It's a weekly 45 minute slot.

At the top of the list was one from December. With a name like "Little Star", I assumed it was something Christmassy, and put off listening "for the time being".

I had a listen at the weekend, and it's really good! Bear in mind the podcast removes the cue, so I heard it without any info at the beginning. I hope the cue was short! Cos this documentary has lovely surprises in it.

It's a very good documentary. No flash effects, but an interesting enough story presented very well.

Reuters AlertNet MediaBridge

A pleasant surprise today in the inbox from Reuters AlertNet. Their MediaBridge.
They describe it as:

"tools and services developed to help journalists cover humanitarian crises through a handy one-stop shop on our website, "AlertNet for journalists":

http://www.alertnet.org/mediabridge/index.htm

New features include hotspot mapping, which allows you to search, scan and zoom in on the world's crises through an advanced Microsoft mapping system, and e-learning for journalists, where we'll be constantly adding new humanitarian training modules on topics ranging from how aid works to understanding famine.

This is in addition to our other tools developed as part of MediaBridge. All our free services can be accessed from the microsite link above, including up-to-date crisis briefings, aidworld contacts and the AlertNet World Press Tracker."

I've kicked the tyres, and I like it! I think it applies as much to someone bound to an office in London as elsewhere. I have an idea of the strength of radio, and wish I could use it for humanitarian good. After all, my first radio job was Reports From Developing Countries, and I still regret not having done a better job of it. But that's another story! Right now, I'm happy the Reuters Foundation has given us this. I've put a link in the side column, and I intend to be a regular visitor.

Music royalties might get paid by Chinese radio stations

Last month, that bastion of radio blogging, Radio Netherland's Media Network, carried this story.

Methods and standards of paying royalties should be promulgated this year. A law about paying royalties has been on the books for six years, it says, but since there wasn't a method in place...

In 2004, when I was a feature producer in China Radio International (CRI), I got a talking to for refusing to use James Bond theme music on an interview with Sir Roger Moore (Yes, it is far and away the biggest interview I've ever done!).

The interview was for Unicef, and made only one mention of Bond in the whole 23 minutes. But the main reason I didn't want to use the music was because it's very distinctive and I didn't want to be held responsible if an angry Hollywood studio came along demanding.. well, demanding anything at all. Working in CRI encourages cowardice (at least in people like me, and party members. But not everyone...!)

So. For the second time that year, the features editor Li Peichun sat me down and explained earnestly: look, we had a meeting once, and "we decided, copyright doesn't apply to us".

I got away without using the music, as we were close to TX.

It's going to be a huge shock to the system for Chinese radio stations to start reporting the use of music. However you can be sure the regulations won't be enacted, or maybe enforced, until the main broadcasters have the "methods and standards" all sorted out -- in other words automated into their audio databases and playout systems. I wish that were the case in the World Service! Still, it keeps me busy on admin shifts.

Some more stuff on royalties and copyright in China. In 2006, I believe CRI received a letter from AP's legal representatives, demanding they stop cutting and pasting AP stories onto their website. This would have suited some of the editors there: stories referring "the wrong way" to Chinese history, politics etc have appeared on the CRI website. (example) You can hardly blame the short-contracted and under-paid web staff, way down at the bottom of the pile there, for copy-pasting longer stories.
Of course if the editors don't check it properly, that's another matter.

The Sound of Life

I'm listening online to a series from July - September. It was on Radio 4, and is called The Sound of Life. It's about sound in the natural world, and in natural ecosystems (not Sound Ecology, something I've only just discovered. I'm looking forward to learning more about that, though it's a bit daunting for now).

The Sound of Life is a good programme. Traditional Radio 4, sure, but there is a lot of nature sounds, more so than in the usual nature and science programmes there. So far, I'm loving it.

So far means I'm on programme three of eight. Here is the webpage, with all eight episodes there to listen again.

Oxfam Alpaca

It's not related, but I've quite fallen in love with this ad since I saw it yesterday :-)

Radios for Christmas in Ireland

A few weeks back, a friend asked about getting a DAB radio as a gift for someone in Ireland. Here's more or less what I wrote:

There's isn't a full DAB service in Ireland, just a trial of the national stations, around Dublin and Louth. Some border areas can get DAB from the north, but I doubt anyone on the south-east, where Welsh TV is widely received, would be able to get DAB. Maybe, on a hill, with a big aerial on a big pole. But not all that convenient, especially when you have satellite.

There's only one set that'll be much use in Ireland, and it's from an Irish-owned company. This Morphy Richards, only available from one place in the UK.

Comparatively future proof DAB, and DRM, the international equivalent (only a handful of stations there -- including both my current and previous employers), plus a good old AM FM radio and SD card slot.

I should recommend a Web radio to be honest -- not those useless MP3 only jobs of yore, but the ones you see advertised on www.reciva.com – some available in Currys as well as online. You need to have a wi-fi router at home, but once you have that, you have a fab choice of stations -- though I'm not sure about battery life, if they even run off batteries.

Maaayybeeee a Sky Gnome, which basially relays the output of whatever you have ont he Sky box to about 50m away. Ideally though, you'll need a second Sky box, hidden away somewhere to let the Gnome user listen to whatever they like without disturbing whoever wants to watch TV!

+=+
Since then: More people say Santa is bringing RTÉ a DRM transmitter tuned to 252kHz – yay!

Handy quote about the BBC

Online I'm reading an article from yesterday's Media Guardian. I haven't finished it yet, but so far there is this dandy quote (which you may interpret as you like!) about the BBC:

"If the BBC has a persistent bias, it's less political than, so to speak, attitudinal - a set of shared secular, liberal, urban, European values and prejudices so deep under the skin that many don't even notice they are there."


The article is by Timothy Garton Ash.

France 24

France24 has launched online, 24 hours before going launching on TV.

Overall I'm impressed! The presentation is nice. The anchors are standing, with a gooseneck mic to the left and right.
Standing improves your voice on-air, and every little helps in a glass walled studio!

I started watching a few minutes after it launched, but the stream was very jittery and I gave up, just a moment before Andrea Sanke's little outburst.
Later on in the night the stream has been a lot smoother.

I like the way the camera switches to a wider shot between the cue and a new package. But in one package I saw, an English speaker (Nancy Pelosi) was voiced over into French, and it wasn't corrected for at least 2 hours. And they have been repeating the same packages, not reversioning.

The news agenda really doesn't look like anything new, I have to say. Lots of agency footage, with, so far, the same perspective as we would expect from the two market leaders.

There's isn't much incentive to chose it over CNN, BBC World, or EuroNews. It hasn't struck me as a different European offering. I think I'll stay with Al Jazeera International for a different perspective. A couple of CCTV 9 style promotional pieces haven't done too much to endear! But I must say again, it is very slick, I''ve only seen & heard it over online streaming, and I enjoy looking out for voices familiar from RFI!

After less than ten hours on-air, the "Frenchness" seems to be in the features more than the bulletins. But I'm not going to judge them this early, of course!

Quote from Jon Snow

I spent a pleasant afternoon in the SOAS library on Friday. Amongst the reading, was Jon Snow's autobiography. I didn't get much past the opening chapters,(time constraints, nothing to do with his writing style!) Anyway, he modestly introduces:
"my wider tale, one from which this reporter emerges at least as blemished as anyone he reports on".

To us all!

Outlook – Ramallah & Jerusalem

I'm listening to Outlook's Schoolday 24, bringing 16 year olds in Ramallah and Jerusalem together. Gripping stuff. Like the similar programme on World Have Your Say in September. Awesome.

Children on the radio, and China

One of the first feature programmes I made was in China Radio International, on Children's Day. Incidentally, in China June 1st is referred to as International Children's Day – while most non-communist countries use that to refer to the UN Children's day, on November 20th.

I went off to one of the international schools outside Beijing – what a school! It was only my second or third interview, and I wasn't to great – I didn't write down their names, and so kept forgetting them. Oops. And it was a little bit difficult to mic me and three children – one with a very quiet voice.

Anyway. They managers in CRI weren't terribly impressed with the content of the interview. I'm deeply ashamed of the utterly awful studio intro and closing I added – gaaaa! I'm not a presenter, no way!

Being a good new producer, I asked one of the bosses what I should have done to make a better show for Children's Day. "I would have interviewed one of their teachers".
So who would I interview on Teacher's Day, I thought. Frankly, I wasn't too impressed. I knew as much then as I do now, that Children need to be heard, and need to be listened to. We can learn a huge amount from children, about growing up, about living, about how adult prejudices are carried on down to younger people.

Later, on the webite of Glenn Hauser's World OF Radio, I saw a report that that week, the CRI engineers had been testing a new DRM capable transmitter, relaying that day's news & feature hour something like 8 times. That resulted in co-channel interference of a regular transmission from another country. But that report finished with something like "a good journalistic job on the interview with foreign kids". I was unsure it wasn't tongue in cheek, but my was it rewarding!

Incidentally, after a few weeks of DRM test transmissions, that transmitter out in Kashi (Kashgar), was more than likely used for jamming, of Chinese language shortwave transmissions from abroad, such as my current employer!

But that'll not change anytime soon. We can hope to get more young people on the radio though

We simply have to get children and teenagers on the radio more!

Maybe if teens and younger are on the radio more, there would be less acceptance of doing something as "far out there" as having a 12 year old host of BBC World Service's The Interview. Not sure on that…
And teenagers may seem to have the digital technology and society to simply go and "Broadcast themselves" (to paraphrase YouTube). Not everywhere they don't.And compare the people who listen to the World Service with those who use MySpace…

Finally, Auckland's 95bFM has children's programmes: I've only listened once though, so I'll have to tune in again this weekend and publish on that later.

Generation Next

BBC Global News Division is doing a week of programmes about children and teenagers, and it's quite simply fab! Mostly on the BBC World Service, along with BBC World and BBCnews.com.

Yesterday was Schoolday 24, and I can't praise it enough. If you can't get to listen again online, at least grab what you can during the rest of the week on the radio.

This morning, heading into work, I was listening to young teens in Dar es Salaam, Delhi, and London discussing how they view the US presence in Iraq. Later, the Chinese Service did a live hour-long programme with Radio Guangdong, with a phone follow-up later on in World Report. Heading out of work I caught a global debate on science with young people.

And last weekend walking to Sainburys I heard Michael Palin interviewed by a 12 year old boy.

Sure, I work in the World Service: but I had nothing to do with any of the Generation Next output (other than putting one phone call through) – and I wish I had! It's awesome stuff, and I'll be listening back online.

London Chinese Radio

Just a quick catch-up. London Chinese Radio has continued doing live shows via Sound Radio in Hackney every Sunday (16:00 - 17:00). We've only missed a couple of live outings so far.

We're looking forward to the second round of community licences being advertised in London and the Southeast next year, and expanding our media literacy angle.

Excuses excuses…

Just an excuse me for the current silence: I've had my eyes lasered (by the lovely people at Optical Express Shaftesbury Avenue), and that means a bit less computer work for a while.
I'll be on Sound Radio on Sunday, with Zhang Rui and Daniel, so I'll hopefully be more or less up to speed by then :-)

I've been listening to loads of radio in my recuperating days, more on terrestrial than the usual online and freeview-via-iMac stuff. I came across CRI a few times on shortwave. I'm not even sure it's an improvement on Realtime Beijing… But anyway, it made me realise, aside from all the moral considerations, I don't want to be associated with rubbish Chinese radio anymore!

Now to apply some more artificial tears!

Community radio – how do you guide volunteers?

How to guide volunteers in making programmes is a difficult part of community radio, when you yourself are not quite part of that community.
Ok I'll stop saying "you", and use "I" instead!

There are two issues up front: first, language. My Chinese simply isn't good enough to clearly express sentiments like: engage the listener, draw in the listener, surprise.

And secondly, maybe it's wrong to impose our radio values on Chinese people. Maybe Chinese people aren't going to be engaged by an intriguing introduction.

True, I don't ever remember hearing anything engaging like that on domestic radio in China (and certainly not on CRI!). It did engage, but by personality. There are some top-notch people at that on air in Beijing!

But being from Europe, I know I could say the same thing about most of what's to be heard over here.

But maybe that's just an excuse!



Let's look at some of the jobs foreigners do in CRI, as an example. Oh yes, I should have said: CRI is China Radio International, where I am ashamed to say I used to work. Well, not so ashamed that I don't actually say it.
You get a government news release, of a minister or his (very occasionally her) spokesperson, translated in English. It says even less than the government news releases here, just in more words. Basically, it says how great the minister is.

And then our job was to polish it – make it sound good. So, you can either turn it round totally, and say: There have, as feared by some, been problems with such-and-such, and the government has been forced to react: or you can just correct the grammar.

They experienced broadcasters who had to read the stuff would change the stuff around. Then their editor would change it again to sound less negative.

I vacillated in how I re-wrote these things. Sometimes I would write and editor-friendly version, and sometimes I'd just leave the rubbish as it was. Basically, because I was happy to show up Chinese politicians as empty wind-bags – better yet, I wasn't doing a thing, I was letting them show themselves up.

Now let's move the radio station, from a government propaganda unit, to an independent, community station in Europe. This is a hypothetical move, by the way: London Chinese Radio is not in that situation, and our content is utterly different.

So. The cue makes clear what we are going to be talking about. Then how do you open the package? The two choices on the table are:

1. Set a scene relating to the geographical community, without naming where you're going, then lead to an actuality that paints a picture of the package's topic,

or

2. Say that if you want to get to this place, here's where it is; and now the sound that paints a picture of the package's topic.


Maybe the choice is easy for a European (or maybe that's just me!). But how can I come along and say which should be used in a Chinese radio piece? I have met plenty of Chinese radio producers who would make the same choice as I would, but they are all here, in London. Maybe recent immigrants don't want that, and would simply switch off.

How much can I steer people making packages? Why, if only my Chinese was better… :-P

Back!

Woohoo! Back after a long time away… all thanks to nothing more than shoddy ISP services. In the true tradition of blogs, I'll tell the whole story in a post soon.
And f course a load of radio catching up to do! Like, for example, London Chinese Radio live shows, package making with more traditionally-minded volunteers, concepts of community media, and whatever else comes to mind :-)

Podmore!

Not podcasting, but Dave Podmore, the fab cricket comedy from Radio 4 – the first series has just finished on BBC7, and starting next Wednesday, the follow-up series. Check it out!

LCR: Chen Li & Kingsley

What a show! Really innovative stuff from Chen Li and Kingsley (who you can see in the training photos down near the beginning of the blog) – using the TV quiz type format to simply inform foreigners about Chinese culture.

Then we had a package from Yizhou – we first met her on Tuesday evening, and already she had a piece on the radio! That's part of what community radio is about.
It just a shame that the files on the playout system (I believe it's Myriad) went wonky while on air :( Chen Li, ex BBC Conti, coped fabulously of course! But we do have to move on now, to make sure we have backups. The studio has CD players, which we should have lined up with all our main actuality.

This coming Sunday it'll be Zhang Rui and I, and hopefully we can have all our audio on my iPod and plugged into the desk just in case :-)

LCR on Sunday 8 October 2006

I don't know who the host is this weekend! I think it's Chen Li and Luke. Tune in at the usual times (as below) to find out!