Culture

BBC news chief gets Web 2.0 news from Facebook

by Kaitlin | June 5, 2007 at 10:47 am

563 views | 5 Recommendations | 1 comment

Speaking at the World Editor's Forum in Capetown, South Africa (where NowPublic's CEO Leonard Brody is also giving a talk), Richard Sambrook, BBC's Global News Chief, admitted that when he really wants to know about what's happening in the world, he turns away from the Beeb. Instead, Sambrook says, he goes to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to see what his friends are talking about.

What would be perfect is if Sambrook found some sort of bridge between social networking and news...hmmm...wonder where he could find that perfect marriage? Maybe if he used the NowPublic Facebook application?

"In my case I have a network of friends that have an interest in social media, in the internet, and new developments. I find out much more about what is happening from them than from the traditional media. Generally, BBC included and the print media as well, tend to be about six months to a year behind what is happening on social networks.

"I think they will be an important part of news consumption going forward, but they are not yet fully developed and we don't really understand them yet, but it is networked journalism of some form."