Harnessing the power of new technology in newsgathering

The BBC is replacing the cameras used by its news crews with tapeless cameras.

It's beginning to replace corporate laptops with off-the-shelf machines. And it's starting to use smartphones as newsgathering tools.

Should anyone give a damn? Well, no. Not unless all this helps to change the journalism that reaches the audience.

That's the problem with technology: by itself it doesn't change anything. What matters is what you do with it. And the all-consuming challenge for what used to be called the mainstream media is to figure out how to use all of this new technology to deliver something that fits the 21st century.

The question is whether the media has really changed to match the world around it. Sure, there are some superficial differences to the past. The relationship with audiences is more interactive. There are some richer ways to tell stories. But, overall, has anything really changed?

Given the revolution in the way people interact with the world, has the mainstream media kept up?

And what exactly does that have to do with some new kit for journalists?

Well, there's one thing that remains constant. That's the tension between finding out information and filing it. And in some ways technology has only accentuated the problem. 

It's not so very long since you could drop off the grid for days. Then came mobile phones. Closely followed by portable satphones. Together, they mean you are always in touch and able to file from pretty well wherever you happen to be.

Some of the results are startling. Audiences can now be taken to the edge of the front-line with high-quality pictures that can be sent from almost anywhere in the world (although it still takes an excruciatingly long time to do so). And pictures in acceptable quality can be streamed live from pretty much everywhere.

But the price of immediacy is less time to find things out - which is a problem if you're competing with everyone with a smartphone and a Twitter account.

So one reason this new technology matters is that it gives journalists more time to do journalism by making it as simple as possible to tell audiences what they've learnt. The driving force is to reduce to a bare minimum the time it takes to file and share content.

The cards the new cameras use can be put in the new laptops and every journalist who has one can edit the video on them. The content can be shared simply and transferred straight into the production system.

Smartphones will do the same for basic video as well as audio, text and stills.

This doesn't sound very revolutionary but it could be, because it can enable every journalist with this kit to spend more time discovering, reporting and thinking - and less time filing.

The challenge will be to take this stream of content and harness its power. And, through that, create a new form of journalism that reflects the world in new ways. You can see this concept at work on the BBC News Live Pages, which pull together many different strands of information.

The real power of the internet lies in the way it enables the creation of ever shifting networks of information. The result is a view of the world that begins to reflect its true complexity. The new technology the BBC is rolling out is intended to help its journalists to contribute the raw data to help create those networks. And if that happens the technology really will have made a difference.

Martin Turner is Head of Operations, Newsgathering, BBC News.