The Ladder

I’ve just finished listening to the latest This Week in Tech with the Tiki Bar TV guys and they were talking about people using New Media as a stepping stone to Hollywood or network television.

Most of them said this was rubbish and people used New Media because it was a brilliant way of getting your own personal vision to a potentially massive audience for a low cost and with full control.

I completely agree with this, I got into new media straight out of school and have been here since. I love it as a platform and I love the fact that I’m part (a small part) of a major international media revolution.

However, the mindset of - first step on the ladder - does exist and is very obvious in local media. Local BBC centres, especially in Jersey, act as a bit of a micro version of the media industry as a whole.

Here people working for new media look to work in radio and people working in radio look to work in television (or network radio). People working on television are looking to work in network television - nobody seems to be looking to work in New Media - except me anyway.

Personally I see new media as the ‘most’ important of all the BBCs platforms - it gives the opportunity to work in audio, video, text and interactive communication - I can talk directly with people about an article I’ve published, a video I’ve produced or an interview I’ve done with someone about a big story.

I can work with a user to write their own story for the website, watch them as they see it published on the BBC and then enjoy the comments and communication that comes in off the back of it.

I can download (soon) episodes of BBC television or radio shows to my computer, talk about them on my blog, discuss them with fans on a message board, post clips of it to my Tumblog or just sit back and watch it.

I just don’t understand why more people don’t see New Media as the ultimate platform - why would you want to work on anything else?

My goal isn’t to be working in TV it’s to be working for the BBC new media development team or working on web2.0 or a national site.

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