Cathy Loughran
is an editor of the BBC Academy blog
Blog posts in total 32
Posts
Is this a smiley face which I see before me - or is #ShakespeareMe a whole new way to discover the Bard?
The ShakespeareMe interactive invites users to choose emojis to reflect their mood and get a selection of shareable Shakespeare quotes to match. It’s playful, but with serious intent, says exec producer Dan Gooding.
Young women audiences are telling us what they want, if only we’d listen
Extending content reach to women aged 16-25 was the subject of a BBC panel discussion on International Women’s Day. Achieving the right tone of voice was seen as essential.
Filming the prosecutors up close: A clear case of trust
Sara Hardy and Blue Ryan gained unprecedented access to the Crown Prosecution Service to make the BBC Four series The Prosecutors: Real Crime and Punishment. In conversation at the BBC, they shared insights into the film-making process.
Data matters: An evolving story
At the latest BBC Data Day speakers discussed the creative opportunities - immediately clear or otherwise - that are exciting journalists, programme-makers and technologists in 2016.
Digital predictions 2016: Year of audience engagement, online video and bendy phones
2016 will see more ad blocking, a faster mobile web, the primacy of audience ‘engagement’ over clicks and messaging apps like Slack going mainstream at work.
International day to end impunity: Calls for a joint safety enterprise
The latest grim figures from UNESCO, showing 700 reporters killed in the last decade, were the backdrop to a Westminster debate to mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
What you need for a career in digital journalism: All the old skills and lots of new ones too
A panel of experts discussed what skills and qualifications are needed by someone starting a career in journalism. The answers were many and varied, including all the traditional skills and plenty of new ones too.
Stand out from the crowd with clarity, excellence and great human stories
In the insatiable seasonal tradition of summer picks (best beach reads, must-see Edinburgh stand-ups), I’d like to recommend some highlights from the recent Polis Summer School talks.
Alex Crawford: ‘Send the right teams, don’t stop doing front line journalism’
Sky News’s special correspondent Alex Crawford has just received the Charles Wheeler award for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism. We ask her about the risks and rewards of the job.
Lyse Doucet: ‘Most international news is no longer foreign news’
Major stories like ebola, the rise of the Islamic State or the migrants’ crisis, are not just about distant countries, says Lyse Doucet, they also involve our own societies.
Can journalists afford to ignore religion? Depends what you believe
The case for increased religious ‘literacy’ among predominantly secular journalists was up for discussion at a feisty Media Society/Sandford St Martin Trust debate.
Why did you get into journalism and would you do it again? Part two
In the second instalment of this blog, broadcasters and investigative journalists explain why they got into journalism and whether they would make the same career choice today.
Why did you get into journalism and would you do it again? Part one
When he advised budding journalists to take a different career path, Felix Salmon unleashed a backlash among journalism champions. Here is what some established practitioners had to say.
#GE2015: Polling has never been nearly this social
It’s already been dubbed the ‘hashtag election’ and #GE2015 presents huge challenges for journalists trying to make sense of the social media noise.
#BBCDataDay: Sharing the scoops, skills and surprises of data journalism
The latest BBC Academy ‘Data Day’ for regional journalists was designed to help reporters use data journalism to break stories and hold the powerful to account.
#CharlieHebdo: Minute-by-minute decisions over UGC
Coverage of the Paris attacks called for a succession of fine judgements from the BBC News social media team. Assistant editor, social news Mark Frankel describes the particular challenges and lessons learned.
Journalists in danger: Symposium steps up pressure on safety
More than 540 journalists have been killed since 2007, with less than one in 10 cases resolved. Against that background, last week’s London symposium on the safety of journalists set itself the task of producing strategies to combat impunity.
#polis2014: A few final thoughts on robot journalism, Durex and James Bond
Now the dust has settled on the 2014 Polis conference, I thought I would whittle out some passing gems that were shared away from the main stage at the LSE last week.
Getting into journalism: Bring a different story - refugee Jamal Osman
The third blog in our series on different routes into journalism is about the inspirational experience of Jamal Osman: a former asylum seeker and now award-winning Channel 4 reporter and film-maker.
Getting into journalism: Just go out and do it, says VICE maverick Tim Pool
There have always been journalists like VICE correspondent Tim Pool who think that the world has more to teach than the classroom.
