Making a Difference: Shaping the Future of BBC News
Story versioning, remote collaboration, using web-based tools in the cloud, sustainability, story-centric ways of working, delivering for diverse audiences, developing new services with innovative technologies—these are just some of the challenges facing the UK’s largest news provider.
In the next episode of the Making the Media podcast, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth on all of these subjects with Morwen Williams, head of UK operations for BBC News.
On the podcast, they discuss how the events of the past two years have reshaped the news operation and the importance of reaching audiences across many platforms with tailored content.
Morwen says, “In my team, versioning takes up an awful lot of time, and to get those versions right for the audiences who want to interact with it on that platform. And so one size does not fit all. We know that, and we have learned that if you just put a big television package online, it doesn't work. It just does not work. So we're experimenting with ways that maybe you could cut something for the television that would work online, as well. But you've just got to accept there are various outlets that will need a bespoke cut.”
The accessibility and collaborative nature of cloud-deployed workflows, accessed through web-based tools, has also become a key requirement.
“Coming into a building with the big setups that you could only do in the BBC building, well, that was not very useful when you were all of a sudden working from home. [..] Anything we are looking at in the future, we would hope would be cloud-based so the old anytime, anyplace, anywhere saying could be true, and that if anything like this happened again, we are future-proofed. More web-based tools as well, absolutely, has got to be the way forward.”
On the episode, they also talk about Morwen’s role mentoring the next generation of young people entering the media industry and the benefits she gains from their perspective.
Find out more on the next episode of the podcast, available on all major podcast platforms on Monday, March 21.
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