Kony2012: Lessons for every journalist

Have you seen the internet sensation film Kony2012? Seventy eight million people have already viewed it, it has taken up copious amounts of print space and governments are talking about changing their policies because of it. For that ever decreasing number of people who have not heard of the film or seen it let me briefly explain what the film is about:

The film is made by a campaign group called InvisibleChildren about the wanted war criminal Joseph Kony, his army the Lord’s Resistance Army and his use of child soldiers in Uganda. So why is the film so popular and what lessons can we learn from it as journalists?

What makes Kony2012’s success even more amazing is that it flies in the face of conventional thinking about how current affairs covers international stories in general and Africa specifically.

Traditionally foreign stories are seen as audience losers. Just to underline this point this week Panorama and Dispatches both covered international stories. Panorama covered recent events in Syria while Dispatches did an investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka. The Panorama film recorded its second lowest audience ever, since becoming a half hour format, of 1.5 million (the lowest audience was 1 million and that was when it got shifted to BBC2 due to an Andy Murray Wimbledon semi-final over-running). Dispatches meanwhile received an audience of 0.3million for its international coverage of Sri Lanka.

When it comes to Africa specifically the idea that low audiences come with the territory is even more ingrained amongst TV bigwigs. I was recently talking to a high level BBC exec who bemoaned the fact that stories on Africa are “niche” pointing to the fact that the BBC This World film onSudan received an audience of only 0.6 million (I should remind you that this was covering the birth of a new nation – possibly the biggest story to occur in sub-Saharan Africa in the last twenty years).

And so it is against this backdrop that Kony2012, a film about a civil conflict in central Africa, has become the biggest current affairs film since Martin Bashir interviewed Princess Diana on Panorama.

People have attributed various theories as to how it has done this. Some people have talked about how the film is so “slick”, others have attributed its success to Facebook and others said it is all about the immediacy of the film using the same tactics as a used car salesman’s “everymust go now” for the internet savvy age.

I don’t believe any of these properly explain its appeal. The film is no more “slicker” than a well produced Panorama, Dispatches or Frontline (on PBS). Facebook alone cannot account for its success, internet sensations like “Thumbs Up For Rock and Roll” only get 5 – 10 million views if you’re lucky, let alone explain how a half hour documentary has got close to 80 million views. And as for the used car salesman techniques, I’m not buying it, people are not that gullible.

The secret I believe is in the idea of “Journalism Of Consequence”. The current affairs films that really succeed are ones that are able to change the world around them. Change government policy, change the way big companies act, force a politician from power etc. When you are watching a strong current affairs film you are watching the world change in front of your very eyes. You are watching something important that will have real consequences in the real world. That is why current affairs programmes that cover domestic issues are invariably more popular. It is far easier for a current affairs programme to influence the actions of domestic government or company than to influence a government half way across the world which is not even accountable to the people who have watched the programme.

The challenge is how do you make programmes that cover foreign issues “journalism of consequence”? If you can crack that nut you will not only attract a large domestic audience you will also have the potential of your film going global appealing to a worldwide audience.

This is exactly what Kony2012 has been able to do. The entire film focuses on what can be done to change things. It also shows how previous efforts have forced change – with Obama supposedly changing US policy due to their campaigns. At almost every opportunity the film virtually screams; “This is journalism of consequence!”. Watch this film and not only are you watching the world change around you, you too can change the world for the better.

The fact is most current affairs programmes that cover foreign affairs are almost the exact opposite. The films offer a window into an unseen foreign world but there are no consequences to the films being made and broadcast.

Kony2012 provides valuable lessons for all journalists that are trying to cover stories not normally covered in the mainstream. It goes to the heart of what this blog is about which is trying to increase the diversity of what TV covers.

First of all it tells us that there are almost no subjects that cannot attract an audience if it is covered correctly. A small civil war in central Africa hardly sounds like a ratings winner. So the next time a commissioner or TV executive tells you the a certain subject never attracts audience remind them it is all about treatment. Remind them of Kony2012

Secondly I sometimes think that the way we write about diversity in TV, (or other non-mainstream issues), is almost like the conventional approach TV takes to foreign affairs; highlighting an important and interesting issue but ultimately with no consequences. BME, women and disabled people are still under-represented in front of and behind the camera regardless of how many articles I write or read. I get “diversity fatigue” and stop reading and this is true for numerous issues.

If we want our journalism to be taken seriously and reach as wide an audience as possible, whether that is about foreign affairs or diversity, we need to learn from Kony2012. We need to produce “Journalism Of Consequence”

Britain's First Black Prime Minister?

A few months ago, one of my production team called me excitedly: “I’ve just spoken to Britain’s first black Prime Minster!”. He had just interviewed Chuka Umunna MP for the Panorama film “Carry On Banking”.  Of course, political predictions by journalists are notoriously unreliable. If the majority of journalists had been right in 2009 Hilary Clinton would be President now. However, it demonstrates that even for hardened Panorama journalists, the young black MP did make an impression.

I was reminded of that Panorama and the Umunna interview today, with the bankers’ bonuses back in the news, and the charismatic young MP seeming to be on every TV and radio news outlet.  They reminded why that one interview encapsulated all the reasons why it‘s crucial to have people from diverse backgrounds working behind the camera.

The Panorama was, as the title suggests, an investigation into bankers’ bonuses. During the  production meetings, we would think through all the relevant people that we could interview – including banking experts, small businesses, banking insiders and of course politicians. It was at one of these production meetings that I suggested we interview Chuka Umunna for the programme. At the time, he had been sitting on the Treasury Select Committee in charge of examining banking practices, and prior to that had worked in the city as a lawyer.  I also knew he was very eloquent. In short he was perfect for our programme.

Despite all of these qualities, no-one else on the production team had heard of him. To be honest, it wasn’t that surprising. He had only been an MP for 6 months, so was still relatively unknown to the majority of people.  At the same time however, I don’t think there was a single black British person interested in politics who did not know of Umunna. So I pushed my team to interview him for the Panorama, and as I anticipated, he proved to be a valuable contribution to the programme.  And obviously, he improved the programme’s on screen diversity.

What this experience proved to me was just how important it was to have people from diverse backgrounds  on production teams if we want to get the very best contributors. The fact of the matter is that while all journalists try to have as large a black book of contacts as possible, we all have different strengths and weaknesses. If all our journalists come from the same background, we will invariably have the same weaknesses and strengths in our knowledge of contributors. It is crucial to draw our journalists from as wide a pool as possible in order to make sure our strengths and knowledge on a team are as  broad and strong.

Working in Scotland news and current affairs I regularly see the benefits of this diversified strategy. Scottish journalists regularly know of contributors that might escape our London based colleagues. For example, the majority of Scots are very aware of Margo MacDonald’s campaign to change the laws on assisted suicide. She is a politician, an MS sufferer and in most Scottish circles considered a “national treasure”. When my Scottish team were pulling together an excellent Panorama – shown in the whole of the UK – on assisted suicide called “I’ll Die When I Choose”, Margo MacDonald was the obvious choice for presenter. But I think it would be fair to say that not many London colleagues would have thought of working with Margo MacDonald on the film. I don’t think it is controversial to say my Scottish colleagues are more aware of potential Scottish contributors and issues than journalists who do not live in Scotland.

But it’s not just important to have people from diverse backgrounds in the production team.  They also need to be in positions of power and influence. Trying to persuade my team that they should interview Chuka Ummuna,a contributor they had never heard of, was certainly difficult. But as the executive producer, ultimately they did as I said. If I had been a researcher with the same suggestion and knowledge, I’m not sure my suggestion would have gone that far.

Following his interview in our Panorama programme – his first on a network current affairs programme – Ummuna is now on our screens and on the radio pretty consistently. You definitely no longer need to be from a diverse background and take a special interest in BME politicians to know of him. However, every time I think of that interview, I wonder how many other great “next Prime Minsters” as my colleague put it, be they black, Asian, disabled or come from any manner of diverse background, aren’t making it to the screen.  And whether that’s simply because the production teams aren’t as diverse the population we make programmes for.

Would You Like A Blindfold Next Time You’re Interviewed For A Job?

Filming starts this week on the BBC’s new big Saturday night family entertainment show “The Voice”. These are the kind of shows that can be the lifeblood of a broadcaster delivering huge audiences. Think X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. The Voice boasts an all star cast including Jessie J, Will.i.am and the living legend Tom Jones.

“The Voice” is a talent show similar in vein to Britain’s Got Talent but with one big difference. The judges have their backs to the contestants not being able to see them. The idea is that the judges’ sole focus will be on the singers’ voices. Appearance, gender, age, race, levels of beauty none of that will matter as the programme emphasises the only thing that should matter in a “talent competition” the contestants’ “talent”.

I’ve never entered a talent competition, and anyone who has ever heard me on a Karaoke night would laugh at the very idea, but I am sure like most people working in television we can all relate to going to interviews and the focus not being solely on our “talent”. A simple look at employment figures across the industry would suggest that consciously or subconsciously issues of race, gender, and disability play a role in deciding who are offered jobs. People from diverse backgrounds simply do not fare as well in interviews.

So could we copy BBC’s new Saturday night show “The Voice” and start holding “blind” interviews? This may not be as ridiculous as it first sounds. 

In the 1970’s approximately just 10% of new hires at major U.S orchestras were women. The justification put forward by those in positions of power was that “women were just not very good musicians”. But suspecting prejudice was at play the musicians’ unions insisted that orchestras should hold “blind” auditions, the applicants would play behind a curtain, concealing their appearance and gender. The results were striking. By the 1980’s half of new recruits to the New York Philharmonic were women, 40% in the San Francisco Symphony and a third in Boston and Chicago. Although this cannot be put down solely to the implementation of blind auditions studies by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and Princeton’s Cecelia Rouse show blind auditions heavily increased the chances of women being hired.

As someone working in television and interested in diversity what concerns me the most is that playing an instrument is a relatively objective technical skill, far more so than the “soft skills” researchers, producers and TV executives are judged on. And so if prejudice can play such a large role in judging whether someone can play an instrument, that auditioning behind a screen can make such a difference, what subconscious prejudices are at play each time someone goes for a job interview in the media?

Now I am not suggesting that the BBC and all the other broadcasters and production companies start conducting interviews behind a screen or with the interview panel turning their backs to the candidate as in The Voice. However other industries have started to realise that a certain degree of “blindness” can be a good thing in their recruitment. 

In the first round of interviews for some Medical Schools and Business Schools the interview panel are not given the applicants’ Resumes to ensure that they concentrate on the interviewee’s answers and are not prejudiced by whether the person went to the “right” school or any other such irrelevant facts. And two years ago research commissioned by the Department of Work And Pensions suggested that CV’s for government posts should strip away surnames to avoid prejudice against people from Asian and African backgrounds.

The Voice will start broadcasting on BBC1 later in the year. As with any big Saturday evening entertainment show there is a lot riding on it for the channel. But for those of us trying to increase the diversity in the media there might be more than one reason to tune in and who knows this show might, in the classic BBC Reithian tradition, educate as well as entertain.

Why Doreen Lawrence Is My Hero

I love Doreen Lawrence. In a world of few heroes and role models (especially for a hardened cynical journalist such as myself) Doreen is a real inspiration.  Her son Stephen was stabbed and killed in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993 by a gang of racists.  After a long, 18 year struggle for justice, this week two of those racists were finally jailed for that act. But over that same period, I’ve also noticed that despite her heroism, for many working in the world of TV and newspapers Doreen is also a real “problem”.

Over the past 18 years, there have been numerous documentaries and News specials produced and aired, focused on the murder of Stephen Lawrence and Doreen’s fight to bring his killers to justice. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a couple of these, and for the others I’ve usually known most of the people working on the productions. But in nearly all of these documentaries and news programmes, at some stage, I have heard the director or producer say “Doreen is a problem”, or use other words to that effect.

This “problem” is always the same. But before I explain what the problem is exactly, let me give you some background.

If you really study them, most documentaries and news and current affairs are quite formulaic. Possibly the easiest and most common formula is the “Goodie - Baddie – Victim” formula. For example, the baddie might be racist police, the victim the black person on the receiving end of the racism, and the goodie the outsider that comes to denounce the racism and solve the problem (sometimes the reporter themselves). This formula is played out time and time again, from elderly people falling victim to consumer scams, to victims of war crimes in the Congo or other countries.

However, for this formula to work well, the baddies need to be really bad and the goodies need to be really good. And crucially, the victims need to be sympathetic people clearly in need of rescuing. They might be resilient and able to take on incredible hardship, but at the same time they also need to be “downtrodden”, “beaten up”, and emotionally “destroyed”.  The formula works even better when a victim goes so far as to cry on camera, showing just how helpless they are and feel.

When it comes to reporting racism, black people are invariably portrayed in the role of downtrodden, passive victims. The underlying journalism to uncover the story might be excellent, but to best attract and engage TV viewers, the characterization often ends up being more like pantomime.

And this is why Doreen Lawrence is a “problem” for many TV producers. She single-handedly destroys this neat journalistic formula. Here is a “victim” who is not beaten. Here is a woman who has lost her son but refuses to cry on television. Here is a woman who will not let us see her broken. When the Lawrence’s lost their private prosecution in 1996, Doreen refused to attend the press conference and locked herself away. It was only when the jury finally found Gary Dobson and David Norris guilty a few days ago that she allowed herself to softly cry in the public court room, before composing herself to then face the media outside.

But, most importantly, Doreen is both the goodie and the victim at the same time. She doesn’t need saving by a benign goodie outsider – who has been, in many other past circumstances, often white.  She made clear that she can save herself. She took on the police, the judicial system and wider British society - and this week her labour finally bore fruit.

While Doreen’s fight to achieve justice for her son Stephen has been incredibly remarkable in so many ways, just as amazing is how she has been able to take on the media and beat them at their own game.  She has confounded the simple stereotype of a long-suffering, passive victim and the easy narratives in which journalists and TV producers try and fit stories of racism into. She has constructed a new paradigm in which journalists must view her and other “victims” of racism.  Having worked in the media for almost twenty years, and knowing how difficult it is to change the industry and innovate, I’m not sure which fight was harder.

Whatever the case, as a journalist, this new paradigm that Doreen has created is the key reason she is my hero.  And I hope that in the coming years we will begin to see her new, more difficult but also more subtle and grown-up paradigm better reflected in programmes that aim to deal with racism and its effects.