It looked like a normal news bulletin and it read like one but something was very different.
On Sunday 19th April 2009, an early evening BBC television news bulletin played a clip of the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, talking about the run-up to his second, and arguably his most important, budget.
What’s wrong with that, you ask?  Well, the clip was taken from the UK government’s treasury department YouTube channel.
The BBC, which always prides itself on originating news by sending reporters, camera crews, sound recordists, satellite trucks and radio cars as part of its news gathering operation, was having to quote YouTube as a source of news and play a pre-budget interview with Alistair Darling that came from the video website. The quality of the clip was, at a glance, acceptable in both picture and audio terms however, the fact remains that the Treasury isn’t that far geographically from the nearest media hub at Millbank.  The news organisation could have shot its own material, even on a Sunday.

We’ve grown used to seeing television news outlets using ropey old VHS quality that has been mashed up on the internet but in the past, that has only been for Osama bin Laden-style addresses and Middle East terror camp training material where the broadcaster couldn’t get the footage any other way.

So, does this signal a new approach from the BBC and other news organisations with a TV presence?  It also begs the questions, why couldn’t the BBC get the chancellor’s footage from the Treasury without having to resort to YouTube?  The BBC has long promoted some of its programmes on YouTube.  Was this a blatant nod to YouTube?

The fact is that the making of news is an expensive business.  It’s also been largely democratised by cheaper high quality video equipment, the emergence of new media – in the shape of blogs, YouTube, Vimeo, Zimbio, Twitter, Twuffer and others – and an over abundance of under or unemployed media-savvy people.  What this also means is that organisations like the Treasury can now set their own news agenda.  They can film their own news and documentary style pieces, edit and distribute them to the world without having to bow to the whims of TV news broadcasters.
You can almost hear the conversation and thought processes that might have gone on: “Mr Darling, would you be able to get into your office, behind your desk on a sunny Sunday afternoon, days before one of your most important announcements and answer some difficult questions?”
Not likely, thinks the Treasury.  We’ll do it at our own pace, with our own people and equipment several days beforehand and if you want it, we’ll send you the YouTube link.

It’s a sign of just how far non-media organisations have come in professionalising their use and handling of media.  Speaking of Twitter, the Treasury even has its own Twitter page.  You can follow the tweets on the budget, and other pronouncements, in SMS-sized bites of up to 140 characters.
The BBC/Treasury/YouTube story might also signal a permanent departure of companies and other organisations depending on traditional media.  Why would you bother trying to get a story onto television news or into newspapers when more people are watching online channels?
Compete.com, a US web traffic analysis service that publishes rough numbers of U.S. visitors to the top one million web sites in the United States, ranks Twitter as the third most used social network behind Facebook and MySpace.  Compete.com puts the number of unique monthly visitors to Twitter at roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visits at 55 million.  So, again, if you were the head of communications at the Treasury or elsewhere, why would you bother forcing your agenda on broadcasters and newspapers, who can only dream of such audiences?

PR, marketing, citizen journalists and others interested in news, have already moved on from the established wisdom.  So too, it appears, have the Treasury.  Who’s next?

The author of this article has no connection to the Treasury or any other organisation mentioned.