Tech……meet the Journalists
The BBC News Apps team are a co-located, cross functional team including iOS engineers, Android engineers, Product/BA, Design and Test who develop the News Apps across UK and BBC World Service. Like most modern software teams we work in an agile and lean way — working in Sprints, developing and testing new features and releasing often and in iterations. One of the challenges of working at the scale and ambition of the BBC is that for many projects we must collaborate with other teams across the organisation. Sometimes they are in the same building, or the same country, but even that is not a given if, for example, when we’re working on our Hindi app.
However, we are in a privileged position that we sit in close proximity to the vast engine that is the BBC News UK organisation. The BBC Newsroom in New Broadcasting House is the largest newsroom in Europe hosting news gathering, journalists, editorial and all other disciplines required to deliver the trusted, impartial view that the BBC is renowned for. They are also key stakeholder to the News Apps, providing us with their insight and knowledge as to how best to present the news which we show in the apps.
A different day…
One of the great things about working at the BBC is that it encourages us to gain understanding of different areas of the business on the basis that by seeing and learning you get an appreciation which can then be taken back to your daily job
To that end an initiative was kicked off by our Product Manager to allow us to spend a day with journalists; shadowing them, seeing how they go about their business, understanding what are their pain points and learning what makes a great news story.
As most of us do not have a journalistic background this is really great opportunity available to us right on our doorstep.
For me the opportunity was to spend a day with the BBC’s Digital Video team…
At what time?!?
So if you are a techie and thinking of moving into journalism then be prepared for early starts! [My experience is that most developers are not morning people….how often have you seen a mass arrival of team members about 3 minutes before a 9.30 standup is due to start!]
I arrived at 8.30am to attend the team’s morning editorial meeting, thinking this is quite early and present at the meeting is the Digital Video teams early shift (6.00am start if you are interested!). In many ways this morning meeting is their scrum standup with people talking about what they did yesterday (well, actually more like what happened overnight), what they will be doing today (i.e. what news stories are being pursued) and what help they need for this.
We’ve got a story…maybe
Making the news at the time was a story around George Michael and his families request to remove tributes to him that have been placed outside his home. The idea was to despatch a film crew to his North London home in order to get some footage and interviews from fans paying their last respects to George Michael.
I was assigned to this crew consisting of digital camera journalist Raeph and reporter Rachel.
As we drove to Highgate, I found out what a varied life a camera team has — ranging from the boring (standing in the rain outside the Old Bailey), to the dangerous (joining police on a drugs raid) and all the way to bizarre (filming a medieval fighting competition!). So it seemed a trip to Highgate, on a pleasant sunny day, was quite a nice assignment.
Discussing with Rachel and Raeph what we would do when we got there, it became apparent that this was something of a “fishing trip”, which is often the case — there is thought of a story but until you get there you don’t necessarily know what you will find, and if anything will come of it.
Arriving at Highgate, however, it was clear the tribute garden was still well visited and, even sixteen months after George Michael’s death, there were many fresh tributes laid and usefully for us, people walking around that we could possibly interview.
As you might expect, the Digital Video team do not produce traditional written articles but instead create short (2–3 minute videos) weaving a narrative through a combination of interviews, captions and supporting footage. This is an important source of content for us in the News App as it provides us with our Videos of the Day and Video Wall features.
What became clear was that the article would only make the cut if we got enough good footage and recorded interviews — and good interviews can be ruined by something as simple as someones phone ringing so, first things first, phones onto silent!
Getting the story
There was a steady flow of visitors, most of whom were quite willing to talk to the camera about their reasons for being there. As reporter, Rachel would get them talking whilst Raeph was looking for the best angles.
What top tips did I pick up? Well, apparently Americans generally give good sound bites and as a seasoned digital camera journalist, Raeph’s reporting radar was alert to a possible lead for another story as it transpired that one of the visitors was a well known street artist going by the name of Pegasus.
Pegasus had drawn one of the murals left at the site and was a massive George Michael fan. He was in the process of preparing a drawing of Meghan & Harry that would be unveiled around the time of the Royal Wedding and after an exchange of contact details agreed to be interviewed about it, exclusively by the BBC — the result of which you can see here.
Credit to the edit
Interviews complete it was then back to HQ for editing down to a 2–3 minute video that could then be placed on the News website and in the app.
Editing started off the shelf video editing tools before being uploaded, passing through a number of BBC systems that do the heavy lifting for all video (broadcast and online) before the final edit is then available in CPS (the BBCs journalism CMS — a remarkable piece of software in its longevity having been around for twenty years!)
It’s a wrap
And the end result? Well, you can see it here and judge for yourself…http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44012917
All in all it was a very interesting day spent with the Digital Video team. It gave me a good insight into what it takes to create news 24/7. Immersed in the Newsroom for the day makes you realise the scale of our operations; the enormous volume and variety of content constantly being produced. Seeing this makes you aware that we, in the News App team, have an important part to play with a responsibility to our Newsroom colleagues to ensure we do our part, delivering a high-quality, rich and engaging experience within the app that can best showcase their work.
If you want to know more about what it is like working at the BBC in the News Apps team then take a look at some of our recent articles
A developer’s guide to BBC News on Android
We are always looking for great people to join our team, so check out the BBC Careers Hub to see what interests you.
