Beeb sacks teaboy, hires Press Association The BBC Television Centre stock photo saga has taken a new, dramatic twist this morning, with the news that the Press Association has been called in to provide the definitive snap of Auntie's own building. On Tuesday, this piece by business editor Robert Peston was illustrated with a stock photo from Getty Images, something …
This ongoing saga would make a good programme for BBC3 or 4!
Half documentary, half soap opera.
So just to recap, now they've paid staff and fees for a Gerry image, a home made image and a PA image, with the PA image being used for what was by then a dead story from days ago. Who says they couldn't care less how they piss away our money?
If they didn't like the home made photo and were embarrassed at being seen to change it at even more expense, they should have had the PR brains to simply go back to the old one, not add a new one to the debacle.
I now imagine BBC executives in the infamous BBC canteen, getting a plate of fish & chips, taking a couple of bites and then deciding they want steak instead. So they throw what they have in the bin and go back for a steak. Then they eat a slice of that and decide they'd rather have a salad. So they throw out the steak and get a salad. But by the time they sit down with that, they go all 'spoilt brat' again and chuck it in favour of a burger, chips and beans.
It's not like they have to pay for it themselves or anything.
It can't go on BBC4, its far to entertaining. The only entertainment allowed on BBC4 is repeats of the Adam West Batman TV series.
Its in the station remit or something that they must have as few viewers as possible.
On a completely different subject, Any chance we can see a version of the story with a stock photo of Vulture Towers?
There is nothing worng with the BBC using stock footage of their own building. They wanted something that looked OK.
The first picture is a bit modern and trendy.
The middle picture was taken when someone accidentaly pressed the shutter release putting the camera back in their bag, and looks pants.
The last picture is very good for the article (you can recognise the building), although the photographer was obviously being chased by the anti-terrorist police with guns, and didn't have time to wait for the pedestrian to get out of the way.
<sarcasm>
As for anyone could take the picture; anyone can write (except me; I'm an enigneer), so why employ journalists? Just let the cleaners write the articles...
</sarcasm>
"The BBC gets stock imagery at a flat rate regardless of how many images it uses from most of the large photo agencies, these would have cost them nothing, this is a non-article."
So that would be like the "flat rate" the Beeb had with music publishers that led to stuff like the radio series of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy having to be re-edited because their agreement didn't allow usage of third-party works in anything other than a single medium?
Yes, what a non-article! After all, it only affects all you licence fee payers having to dig a bit deeper to pay for the same stuff over and over again as it comes out on a slightly different medium that isn't covered by those "all* you can eat (*limits and restrictions apply)" agreements.
But hey, let's just ignore the big picture and cut the Beeb some slack, as usual. After all, the gravy train keeps rolling, but "at least some of the people driving it are British".
I don't understand your point, a flat rate means that they pay the press association, getty et al a flat rate monthly and can use any number of their images for the stories they are covering. Therefore choosing a stock image of their own building costs them nothing, they have effectively already paid for it, and in no way is that a waste of public funds, they simply chose a more appropriate image for the story.
Hopefully that has cleared things up.
Correspondents of Danny O'Brien's NTK newsletter were notorious, a few years back, for trawling the BBC news website's archives and sending in examples of how the news team would reuse the same stock photographs over and over again (often of marginal relevance to the stories they were attached to). Their pinnacle probably came in 2002, when they ran a story about a powercut in Oxforshire, which simply showed a black rectangle. I can't remember if they used a stock photograph of pitch darkness, or not - or, indeed, whether they reused the black rectangle on other, electricity-shortage-related, news articles, later on.
I'm still waiting for a version of this picture that shows the front porch of Television Centre, with The Everywhere Girl standing outside it, in grey pullover and a hat like a teacosy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3040891.stm
"A goldfish, last week"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2458867.stm
"A drunk woman, last night"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1879457.stm
"An even drunker woman - still there, while three o'clock, this morning"
(Maybe she's the Everywhere Girl's mum, in fact: "Never Out Of The Pub Woman"?)
I guess the Daily Fail will be running an article on this. They will say scores of complaints have been made about the abuses of the BBC's monetary waste.
ElReg, if the Daily Mail writes about this, then you can sue them dry. Finish them off and write off to the MP's that the Press Complaints Commission is run by the Daily Mail and is thus not fit for purpose in its current state.
Jennifer Chandra is the everywhere girl - the woman who grew up to be a meme:
www.theeverywheregirl.com
She's a redhead, just like the BBC's "Never out of the pub woman"... In fact, maybe it's a redheaded woman thing... since we also have "Nokia woman" - Yvonne Puig:
http://thisrecording.com/today/2009/5/22/in-which-shes-every-woman.html
It seems many articles have photos with them that add absolutely nothing to the article. Does a photo of any of the BBC's buildings help the reader understand what the BBC is? Does a reader who has already made it to the BBC's website (presumably for the purposes of accessing journalism) really need any further explanation of the BBC is?
What then do any of these photos actually acomplish other than filling space, consuming bandwidth and distracting from the actual article? Just because you _can_ (or in this case apparently , _can't_) include a photo in an article doesn't mean that it neccessarily follow that you _should_.
To show why there is still the need for professional photographers.
Just because cameras are cheap and just about every one has access to a camera, doesn't mean they produce usable images.
The first one is the only decent image, the one by the teaboy is just crap, and whilst the others are better quality the framing of the image makes it look like someones holiday shots.
Ironically, it does point out the futility of the way the terrorism laws are used. Because despite the ability to get all the photos they want discretely, the terrorist is far more likely to be there with tripods, multiple lenses, spend time framing the shot....
But maybe I'm taking this too seriously
the BBC paying for images, I'm a photographer and I know many are struggling.
However I was slightly miffed when BBC used a PA image that was actually my photo of my husband. I didn't even get a credit (to add insult to injury they also completely ignored my existence in the article too)!
="The BBC's news and current affairs programmes and news website have annual agreements with AP, PA, AFP, Allsport and Getty Images for image use. This image has been changed six times at a cost to the licence-fee payer of a few pence in terms of man-hours, which will be made up for in overtime."
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