diary for my final project

May 4th Group meeting
choose the topic Media bias
unclear about my story

12th talk with Hugo

14th talk with Xinxin

21th talk with Michael

29th talk with Wesley

May 11th Group meeting
May 18th
May 25th

June 1st Not happy with
call David to
June 8th
call David
June 15th change the topic into Do we need our own media


18th
Intro:
I am a Chinese. I have been in UK for nine months but I have worked in an internet Black community TV station for six months.

what is the first black British internet TV station like?


Selling part is Why is a Chinese journalist working for black community TV station? What is this station like? Why do black people want to have a TV station? How does this station survive?


My story:


I am a Chinese journalist, 24 year old, come to London October 2010.


I was born in China where black people are rarely seen.


To be honest, I am a little bit afraid if a tall and strong black stranger stands in front of me.


I am not sure where my idea on black people are from. Maybe the image comes from American Hollywood Movies. Black people are always associated with violence, crimes, anger. The decent people are all white guys.


Also there is another kind of black people's image. They live in a place where I never have a chance to visit. They are away from modern society. They lack food, water but they are peaceful people. They do not work hard because the weather is too hot to work.



Some questions which are in my mind:


What is 'black media'?

Is there still a need for 'black media'?

How does Colourtelly differ from other more established and better funded broadcasters?

Where is the 'black British' audience today?

How does it get its news?

How do you define the news of 'black interest' - what is the criteria?

Are other more established medias unbiased in their coverage... How do they cover 'black-interest news' if at all....

Can a non-black journalist (i.e. Chinese cover black-interest news)

is 'black-interest' by its very definition biased

June 22nd
call Denisa
talk with classmates from choices of
niche market of colourtelly tv station
Do Black Britons need their own media

23rd
'Colourtelly.tv', The Guardian

Monday, July 02, 2007 Send to a friend Send to a friend
'We don't see ourselves represented on screen at all'. Britain's first general interest black internet TV station launches later this month. Founder Dotun Adebayo talks to James Silver

Dotun Adebayo is in the middle of "doing the season". And he is not referring to the one involving horse-loving debutantes in pearls called Sophie. "There's an unofficial black season too, you know," explains the broadcaster and publisher.

"Just like the season of events in the white, upper-middle-class world, which begins with Ascot, or whatever, and ends with the Proms, black people have a similar thing throughout the summer. It starts with the Afro Hair & Beauty show at Alexandra Palace in the last weekend of May and it ends with Black History Month in October, with huge events like [the Notting Hill] carnival in between."

But rather than nibbling on canapés and circulating, glass-in-hand, at such events, Adebayo and his wife, the singer Carroll Thompson, have been hard at work, frantically dishing out DVDs to promote their new venture www.colourtelly.tv, Britain's first-ever general interest black internet TV station. "July is the perfect time to be launching," he says. "We gave out 2,000 sample DVDs of the channel at the Afro Hair and Beauty show and at carnival, I hope we'll give out 20,000 more. We'll continue doing the same thing right through till October, until everyone gets to hear about us."

By under-serving or neglecting minority viewers altogether, says Adebayo, the mainstream broadcasters have left a yawning gap in the market. "The black audience pays its licence fee, but we don't really see ourselves - or stars from our community - represented on screen at all. I was watching TV last night, on several different channels, and I promise you, apart from people passing by in the street, you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of black faces your saw."

And that's where colourtelly.tv comes in, he continues. "There's nothing remotely like it out there. Yes, there are a few other black TV stations based in Britain - but they tend to be Nigerian TV stations or the obligatory black-interest music stations. Colourtelly.tv will be a very different proposition. We'll be making our own drama, our own talkshows, kids' and history programmes, all aimed at a black British audience.

"I've tapped into a whole stream of black actors. Everyone in the black community knows names like Victor Romero Evans and Patrick Robinson, who was on Casualty, but when was the last time you saw them on TV? The same goes for scriptwriters and presenters. I'm getting inundated. I spoke to the editor of a prominent black newspaper and told him about my plans and he said 'Can I have my own talkshow?' And I said, 'Of course. If Piers Morgan gets his own TV show, you should too.'"

The channel will also broadcast a daily soap opera ("a black EastEnders"), Babyfather, based on a series of books by Patrick Augustus, which were published by Adebayo's company the X Press. "The X Press put out more than 200 books by first-time authors, including [first black British bestseller] Yardie and Cop Killer," he says. "We sold the rights to a couple of them - we made about £100,000 selling the rights to Yardie, although it has never been produced, and the first Babyfather was made by the BBC - but the rest are just sitting there. We've got this whole resource about the experience of the black community in Britain which we can now turn into drama for the channel."

Born in Nigeria in 1960, Adebayo came to Britain five years later. He studied literature at the University of Stockholm and philosophy at Essex University, before going on to become a music journalist for publications including NME, Melody Maker, Time Out and Echoes. From 1987-1991 he was music editor at the Voice and a columnist on Pride magazine and the New Nation. Today, he combines presenting on Radio Five Live and BBC London with guest slots on BBC2's The Culture Show and Newsnight Review.

No one can accuse Adebayo and Thompson of not putting their money where their mouths are with their new project. Loans have been taken out. Credit cards have been "maxed out". The family home has been turned into a studio set. Equipment including Sony PD150 cameras and a Panasonic vision mixer have been purchased from eBay, and while budgets are decidedly of the shoestring variety, Adebayo stresses that "everyone gets paid for their work".

The channel is subscription-only and he estimates that with 2,000 subscribers, paying £10-a-month each, it can "just about break even producing four hours of unique broadcasting per day played on a loop". However, a 10,000 subscriber base would allow the station to be on air 24 hours. "Me and my wife are risking everything with this," he admits. "We're risking our home and our future. If the black community want it, it will be there. If they don't, well ... then we'll go under."



Subject: RE: one line of my story
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:32:52 +0100
From: D.Gyimah@westminster.ac.uk
To: fannysuchang@hotmail.com


Su

Why do you do this to yourself. You spoke to me on the phone a couple of days ago about a story about Colour TV. We spoke about it. You had a personal insight into this story. It worked. You've now delivered to me a completely different story. PLease, please call your colleagues.. tell them you need help. and sit down with them for a while to understand what it is you need to do. Your peers will be able to react with you in a way that perhaps I can't; that said I don't know why you're changing the basic story AGAIN.

Remember it is one story...

Murielles is about polution - and she has five different people talking aboutr polution in London
Randa's is about sexual harrasment and she has a number of interview to tell this story
Denisa's is about a hospital and its conditions. Be aware her story is not about the conditions of hospitals in Romania - that would be too big
Junjie - I'm not sure what her story is about - and perhaps you need to talk to her - as I'm getting no response
Alberts is about the problems likely to arise from a change in legislation for a particular court system in Kenya
Patricia's is about the effect of econ tourism on individuals - NOT Gambia, that would be too big
Su Chang - by now saying you want to do "Where to go: niche internet TV station" you have set yourself the task of covering too much ground; hence the range of your questions which are way too big and broad..

David Dunkley Gyimah




-----Original Message-----
From: Chang Su [mailto:fannysuchang@hotmail.com]
Sent: Mon 6/21/2010 5:25 PM
To: David
Subject: RE: one line of my story


Hi David,
I think there will be many stories related to this topic. I chose this as my main Story:


Where to go: niche internet TV station




My documentary
Part one: internet is a trend:


newspaper has created its website version
people are addicted to blogs, twitter, facebook...
increasing number of netizens
increasing audience of youtube...
traditional TV station BBC introduced i player
internet TV stations are established
what are the internet TV stations like? What kind of program do they produce? Do they charge people who watch their program?how can they make money? how are things going so far?




one of them enters a niche market: ethnic "colourtelly TV station"




Part two :Focus on colourtelly
do we need "black media"?
a cry for black media to report themselves.
Their differences from other internet TV stations


Part three:More to think:


Do they make money?
what is their format of survival?
Where are its audience?


interview their staff
no or low payment for interns but why do they work for colourtelly
interview their guest speakerswhy do they want to contribute to this internet TV program without money?


interview its founder
Its founders: Dotun Adebayo and his wife Carroll Thompson. Both of them are famous in black community.
why did they establish this internet TV station?what are the problems so far?


Part four:what is next? How would this black internet TV station survive? How would internet TV station survive? How could we make our minority's voice heard?




Let me know whether this could be called a story.
Thank you.
Su Chang
Subject: RE: one line of my story
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:55:22 +0100
From: D.Gyimah@westminster.ac.uk
To: fannysuchang@hotmail.com













yes but you need to write it up as a blog. Su that's what i said. Please take notes in class. I can only assisst you on the evidence of work I see and writing a blog helps you because it demonstrates you have the right elements for the story. please consult with Denisa. I asked her to do the same thing



David Dunkley Gyimah









-----Original Message-----

From: Chang Su [mailto:fannysuchang@hotmail.com]

Sent: Mon 6/21/2010 1:05 PM

To: David

Subject: one line of my story





the story is



The surviving difficulties (or the state) of the Black internet TV stations in UK-discovered by a non-black journalist in black internet TV station



Subject: RE: SU Chang's final project story

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:25:41 +0100

From: D.Gyimah@westminster.ac.uk

To: fannysuchang@hotmail.com

















RE: SU Chang's final project story









Su - we need the story.. what's the story







David Dunkley Gyimah



















-----Original Message-----



From: Chang Su [mailto:fannysuchang@hotmail.com]



Sent: Sat 6/19/2010 5:54 PM



To: David



Subject: SU Chang's final project story











Dear David,



How are you?



It is obvious that I start my final project proposal so late and I don't want to make any excuse. But I will try my best to catch up from now on. I understand in real working atmosphere, deadline for journalists will always be like this tight rather than flexible two months long. I will treat this as a challenge, battle.



Best wishes,



Su Chang My final project: Black internet TV station's state







Why am I doing this project?1)Ethic people's voice is rarely correctly heard from UK's mainstream media (SKY, CNN, BBC). It is better to have their own media and report properly rather than criticise mainstream media. 2)Internet TV station is a new thing and could be a trend in the future.



The colourtelly TV station just combines these two elements. I would like to focus on this very one as a case to tell a story about the current state of ethic internet TV stations.



The story:



I am a Chinese journalist but work in a black-interest internet TV station. What's the internet TV stations like? What's the Black internet TV station like? How do I work with them? Then how would internet TV station survive? How could ethic minority's voice heard?







Scene 1I am a Chinese journalist, 24 year old, come to London October 2010.











I was born in China where black people are rarely seen.











To be honest, I am a little bit afraid if a tall and strong black stranger stands in front of me.











I am not sure where my idea on black people are from. Maybe the image comes from American Hollywood Movies. Black people are always associated with violence, crimes, anger. The decent people are all white guys.











Also there is another kind of black people's image. They live in a place where I never have a chance to visit. They are away from modern society. They lack food, water but they are peaceful people. They do not work hard because the weather is too hot to work.



I lack the knowledge of black people. How about you?



Scene 2: Why and How does a non-black journalist work in black internet TV station?



When I began to take part in colourfully, I did not think too much.











I feel black community, like every ethnic community, needs to be treated well. Racial problems always go to the black community while although Chinese people also suffer from being minority, but not with serious racial problems.











When I contributed to BBC 5 Live, I was asked why your Chinese people were so quiet.











I answered, that's our culture.











At the same time I realised it was not we Chinese people would like to be quiet; it was because mainstream media did not pay attention to our Chinese people.











The same happens to black community. Or the media exaggerate their negative images such as high rate of crime, being rude.











The result is devastating: when black people go to the bank, they hardly get the mortgage comparing with white people. when black students are at school, teachers tend to assume them as poor-performed students. If there is a crime associate with ethic people, the crime is easily labeled wit "black on black crime".











And black people are definitely not the only ethic people who suffer from this bias.



Since I study journalism, I could sense the inappropriate reports on black community.



So I decided to see a real black people on my own.



Scene 3: How would this black internet TV station survive? How would internet TV station survive? How could we make our minority's voice heard?



Colourtelly is the first black interest internet TV station in the UK.



By under-serving or neglecting minority viewers altogether, the mainstream broadcasters have left a yawning gap in the market.











"The black audience pays its licence fee, but we don't really see ourselves - or stars from our community - represented on screen at all. I was watching TV last night, on several different channels, and I promise you, apart from people passing by in the street, you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of black faces your saw." one interviewee said to me.











There's nothing remotely like it out there. Yes, there are a few other black TV stations based in Britain - but they tend to be Nigerian TV stations or the obligatory black-interest music stations. Colourtelly.tv will be a very different proposition. We'll be making our own drama, our own talkshows, kids' and history programmes, all aimed at a black British audience.



















But when I entered the real working atmosphere of colourfully, I should say that I can not accuse the founder, Dotun Adebayo and his wife Thompson, of not putting their money where their mouths are with their new project. I should say that I respect him because as far as I know, he and his wife are risking everything with this. They're risking our home and our future.











How can they survive, in this capital society? Who really cares about black community or your programmes? Even black people may not know your station. How do you make money?











If the station continues to burn money, in a way of producing programmes every week but hardly get its audience, I am not optimistic to its future. This internet TV station relies too much on Dotun's financial support and his fame in media. How does a non-black journalist work in black internet TV station?

June 26th
Interview Dele Ogun

29th
talk with classmates

July
4th
5th
6th
July 13th