On the day of Coventry Conversations’ 200th anniversary, the Ellen Terry building hosted the head of BBC’s editorial department for multimedia journalism - Pete Clifton. “Life at the frontiers of the internet” did not gather the expected amount of students, but those who showed up, were certainly not disappointed.
Pete Clifton, now 47-years-old, has been a journalist since the age of 19. He worked as a sports reporter at the Chronicle and Echo in Northhampton, he was the editor of BBC’s teletext service Ceefax, the editor of BBC News Interative, as well as Head of BBC News Interactive.
As the head of the multiplatform production over at BBC online, Pete certainly has his hands full. Democracy Live, Formula 1, BBC Flow, together with around 50 local sites are just a small part of BBC’s current online production.
In addition to launching new websites covering the World Cup and the 2012 Olympic games, at the moment BBC online is in the process of total remake. “We are currently rebuilding our content production system”, Pete said.
The average person reads up to 4 stories per visit on any BBC website. “The purpose of this refresh is to keep people longer on the site”. Picture galleries and better promotion of audio and video are some of the planned changes to attract more readers.
Pete believes their production is distinctive and has a real place in the market and will remain a free service in the UK. “Whatever else we do, if we’re not good of breaking news, we’re not in the game. We don’t have to be first, but when we enter and do something, we have to do it spectacularly”.
Pete’s advice for journalism students is three-part – “Put yourself as much as you possibly can, be prepared to work for nothing and get all possible skills”. And maybe someday you will become Pete and earn 140,000 pounds a year.Labels: 101mc |
