Ask Charity Weblog

We held an event on Wednesday on Race, Refugees and Asylum for BBC Radio 4. We invited 30 charities who deal with these issues. It was interesting how difficult it was for big charities to choose who to put forward. We like charities to send people who work on the front line, or who have personal experience of the issues - a client or a volunteer is fine. However we have one "rule" which makes this a problem - that charities should only send one representative. Some charities, particularly big ones, find it incredibly hard to send a project worker to an event without a press officer accompanying them. Two major charities really wanted to take part but in the end seemed paralysed by the issue of who to send, given their desire to represent the charity as they would like and our desire to represent "the front line".
We like the real life case studies to be there ideally because we know that they often tell the most powerful stories - which is what the Radio 4 people want to hear. Another charity was respresented by a young teenage refugee who is still at school. Of course a charity representative came with him in this case. The charity laid down that no-one should ask the young refugee where he came from or why he came to this country. They were allowed to ask about his life now. I completely understand the charity's desire to protect their client but I wonder whether it is worth putting him forward for media events with those restrictions. Most journalists can live with some limits on their questions but faced with a refugee whose country of origin they cannot know, many will get frustrated. One BBC delegate said that the charity was not being very helpful - impolite I know but clearly his honest opinion.

The great thing about the event was the feedback from both sides afterwards. A Five Live producer e-mailed some of the charities the next morning about a feature they would like to run and one of the charity delegates was on the news!

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Phil Collins, the Turner Prize nominated artist, put TV production companies under pressure yesterday. Phil collects people's accounts of their TV experiences. He explores through his artwork versions of "reality" and has been focusing recently on makeover shows and Trisha-style programmes.

Yesterday a panel of people who had particpated in programmes such as Supernanny and Wife Swap spoke out about what had happened to them before, during and after filming. A courageous panel spoke about their own experiences to a room of journalists and reporters. George Sweeney spoke of how his family agreed to take part in a programme called "Families" beacuse he wanted to get help and support for his autistic son who was having difficulties. The programme was later broadcast on Channel 5 with the title, Teen Tamer: Foul mouthed and Furious - the programme implied that George's son's problems were caused by bad parenting and made no mention of his son's autism. Read more accounts in today's Guardian coverage of the event.

Story after story was told of how this particular breed of formatted "makeover" shows, mislead participants and failed to support them and their families. They alll spoke of how they were abandoned after broadcast, how they were hounded by the tabloid press after transmission of the programme and, most painfully, how their children had been bullied. They felt they hadn't be sufficiently warned quite how intrusive the programme making process was. One speaker, spoke of how they had filmed over 600 hours with her family to produce a one hour programme - the final editing process successfully manipulating her "real story".

Reporters in the room were enthralled by these people's frank and honest accounts of their TV experiences. They shifted uncomfortably in their chairs at times - but whether the TV companies and commissioners take note is yet to be seen.

You can visit Phil Collins exhibition at Tate Britain, which features filmed accounts of TV particpants' experiences and you can also contact his office Shady Lane Productions to tell him your own TV stories.

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Have you watched FIVE news recently? They are now running viewers' stories as part of their daily news programmes. Anyone can send in a short film about their community, a campaign, an issue that's important to them. Plus if your film gets used on the news you'll get paid £100. A great opportunity for charities and their clients to influence the media agenda. Have a look on the FIVE News website to watch previous viewers' films: "This is your chance to tell us your story... Your video, photograph or story can be about anything which is important to you or which you think other people should know about."

Meanwhile over on BBC2, Newsnight are handing control over to their viewers too. They've called the project "Oh my Newsnight" and they want people to make two minute films about the news story they want to see. You can use mobile phone cameras, or home videos/dvds. The deadline for submitting films is 4 December 2006. Full instructions are on their site.

Will be interesting to see if viewers' news takes off - but a gift for charities with a story they'd like to see in the national TV news.

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Heard Sue Fidler, the web consultant, talk yesterday. She gave a few good tips on promoting your website, or your work, via the web. She pointed out that in many cases the web teams of media outlets are completely independent of the off line teams - eg at the Guardian. You may think that the story about your organisation that appears in a magazine/on the radio will automatically appear on the website of that outlet. But that's not always the case. So Sue suggests that you seek out the web contacts for all the media outlets you are targetting.
She also had a great idea about charities using Flickr. Any charity can set up an area on Flickr where their supporters, campaigners and volunteers can post photos of their work/campaigning for the charity. That way the charity can get lots of photos and involve a lot of people. Those photos may be browsed by anyone looking at Flickr. See the Stop Climate Chaos entry http://www.flickr.com/groups/stopclimatechaos/

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askCHARITY have just returned from Sheffield International Documentary Festival where all the big names in factual TV production gathered to discuss the next TV trends. The headline news came from Simon Dickson the TV commissioner who brought us the Channel 4 "BodyShock" series; who pushed for more and more extreme "biology" programmes; who created the fashion for crass programme titles like "The Man Who Ate His Lover". Simon announced to the festival audience that "due to the diminishing number of 3 headed children in the world" he would no longer be making any more programmes about "extreme science and deformities" for Channel 4. Instead he has launched a new strand of documentaries called "Only Human" which will focus on "human triumphs"; he mentioned in particular two forthcoming docs - "The Strangest Hotel in Britain" and "The House of Agoraphobics".

Elsewhere at the festival, documentary makers told us of their frustration with trying to get their programmes shown on TV channels. Many spoke of how they had made sensitive, thought provoking, tough films - only to be thwarted by TV executives who were too busy hunting for the next "formatted" factual entertainment shows. None of the channel comissioners at the festival were interested in any docs about International issues.

Meanwhile other documentary makers told us that they were excited about the growing power of the Internet (as the new TV) Many new film makers told us that they were now posting short films on sites like YouTube and My Space. A powerful, bitesize documentary format is emerging which charities could really begin to make the most of.

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Asadour Guzelian runs a photo agency which supplies photo based stories to magazines like Inside Housing, Police Review and Health Service Journal. They also sell their photos to national newspapers and The Times Educational Supplement. Guzelian wants to hear from charities about any events they may have coming up - if he thinks there's a photo in it he'll come and cover the event and sell it in to publications. A great way to get coverage for your charity without any hassle or cost. Have a look at their agency's impressive photos on www.guzelian.co.uk and email him with any forthcoming charity event/ exhibition/ launch details: news@guzelian.co.uk They're particularly interested in any events related to health, education, housing, young people, science, crime, environment. Asadour's mobile number is 07968794128.

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