Behind the Scenes: BBC's Stuart Hughes' 'Blog exclusive'
The BBC's Stuart Hughes was one of the first journalists to report the surprise early handover of Iraqi sovereignty Tuesday, filing his report to the BBC and then posting an entry on his blog. Hughes, who lost his leg to an Iraq landmine, was also the first blogger to report on the handover -- and his blog entry beat numerous mainstream media outlets.
While he's been hailed across the blogosphere for his "blogging exclusive," in an e-mail interview he points out he "only got the story in the first place because I'm a journalist with a traditional news organisation -- albeit one with my own personal blog which allows me to flash stories as quickly as the big boys."
He says his BBC job and blog complement each other "perfectly," and notes he often cherry-picked the best bits from his blog and condensed them into columns about his recovery for BBC Online.
Hughes calls his blog his "guilty secret" and says he thinks the hype about how blogs are replacing traditional media is "rubbish."
Read the full interview:
The timing on the Iraq story was as follows...
I was in Istanbul working as a World Affairs Producer for the BBC -- my "real" job. I don't think NATO give press accreditations to bloggers yet (unlike the Democrats in the US!!)
At around 8.30 in the morning local time my team started getting word from colleagues who'd been at the press conference with Hoshyar Zebari and Tony Blair that the handover was being brought forward. Details were very sketchy to start with but over the next half an hour we managed to firm the story up enough to feel confident going to air with it.
Obviously, my main priority was to get the story on the BBC and as soon as we had enough information to feel confident broadcasting it we filed copy to London and started gearing up to do TV and radio interviews. While I was working the phones I bashed out a couple of lines onto the blog through the laptop in my hotel room -- the "exclusive" you can see on the site.
I can't be 100% sure but I think the BBC had the story first, then it popped up on the blog and the wires -- but I'm pretty certain it was on the blog before most of the main networks -- CNN, Sky, etc. It was certainly a Blog Exclusive, that's for sure.
The interesting thing about the "scoop" is that some people are seeing it as an example of how blogs can break news first. That's only half true. I only got the story in the first place because I'm a journalist with a traditional news organisation -- albeit one with my own personal blog which allows me to flash stories as quickly as the big boys.
Dube: As someone with similar background to yourself (work for traditional media and blog on the side), I'm curious why you started the blog, how/if it's helped you in your job and how you see it complementing your role with BBC (assuming you do). And I'm also curious why you decided to post that item on your blog... if you needed approval for that... and why BBC didn't mind (since many traditional media organizations might not have approved)?
I started the blog in Feb 2003, just a few days before I went to Iraq to cover the war. I didn't know anything about blogs, blogging or self-publishing. I simply wanted a quick and easy way to keep in touch with my family and friends back home in the UK so that they could be reassured I was safe and well. Blogs seemed like the answer and so I paid a few dollars to set up the site, e-mailed my nearest and dearest to let them know the blog was live, and updated whenever I could while in Iraq. After a few weeks in Iraq, the Guardian newspaper in the UK picked up on my site and the traffic exploded -- and I suddenly found myself lumped in alongside Salam Pax etc as a "warblogger." I didn't object but it was never my intention -- as I say, I hardly knew what blogs were. For me, they were just a very effective way of posting information to those closest to me.
Obviously, things changed dramatically when I lost my leg to a landmine. For a few months I felt totally cut off from the world as I recovered from the amputation of my leg in a wheelchair. The blog became a vital connection with the world -- and the e-mails and support I received from readers really helped me through that difficult time. I tried to be as honest as possible during that recovery period. My feeling was that as I make a living asking people in difficult situations to open up to me and tell me their stories, I had a responsibility to do the same when I was going through a tough period.
In terms of the relationship between my blog and my BBC work -- it's always a fine line. I see the blog as a kind of "sketchbook" for ideas and subjects I'm interested in. I throw all the things that catch my attention onto the blog and over time some of them percolate down into my BBC reports. That was certainly the case last year when I was writing a weekly column about my recovery for BBC news online. I'd write every day on the blog and then condense what I thought were the best bits of writing down into 500 words a week for the BBC -- so the blog and my paid job complemented each other perfectly. Obviously on my blog I can be opinionated in a way I can't be in my BBC work.
The BBC have been very tolerant of my blog....there's certainly been none of the pressure that people like Kevin Sites have faced. To start with, I don't think BBC managers really understood what blogs were about. By the time they cottoned on to the fact I was expressing my own personal opinions on a blog I'd had my accident -- and I think they thought it unwise to add insult to injury by complaining about it! I've never sought permission from my BBC bosses over my blog -- nor have they asked for it. Those BBC colleagues who know about it regard it, I think, as an amusing sideline -- although many of them have said I should use it as the basis for a book...which I probably will at some point. I regard my blog as my guilty secret!
Why did I post the story on the blog? Because I could, I suppose. At heart, I'm a news junkie and I can't keep a secret. I had an important piece of news and I wanted to get it out there as quickly as possible.
I also thought it'd be an interesting exercise. There's a lot of guff written about how blogs are replacing traditional media outlets and now how the news networks are becoming obsolete. Personally, I think most of it is rubbish. I just don't buy the fact that blogs turn everyone into a journalist -- genuine journalism requires a level of insight, experience of a situation, and caution. Some bloggers demonstrate all three -- many do not. However, on Monday morning I had a genuine, cast iron, major news story. I was interested to find out how quickly it could be disseminated through the blogosphere -- and how long it would take the news networks to catch up (as it happened -- not very long.)
June 30, 2004 | BY JONATHAN DUBE
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