the bbc's 15 web principles (via sekante).

other public broadcasters' web principles are based on some of the following rules:

1. try to re-establish the power of television on the web. tv people are the elite, those web freaks have no clue.
2. the web is a marketing platform for promoting events and selling assets of television and radio.
3. it's ok if there is some alternative web content and services unrelated to tv or radio as long as it increases a user base that can be milked in the end (ie. after the power of television and radio is re-established on the web).
4. aggregating and selling user data should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent: after all, it's your users' data. best respect it. (muahahah!)
5. believe the hype (podcasting! iptv!) and don't do anything to analyze it even if you have media research capabilities at large. especially, a broadcaster hardly being in the black should throw out heaps of money blindfold for cheap low-quality audio and video thingies competing with user-generated content.
6. don't try to educate your long-time staff for the new media. a secretary with 30 years in service can handle web content just as well as one of those web smartypants.
7. that's why the secretary should earn more than any of the so-called online journalists.
8. what are online journalists, anyway? they are copy&paste editors! only call them journalists when necessary. they don't even deserve the lower salary. let alone respect or appreciation. or accreditation for events to report about.
9. try to replace online journalists by real ones with experience (ie. connections to the old boy network). pay them more than the editor in chief of the online editorial staff.
10. always boast about how successful your web team is and at the same time complain how hostile they are against innovation. of course, innovation means: putting television and radio on the web.
11. always complain about the lack of support of and the missing co-operation with the old, real media (guess what: it's television and radio!) and at the same time counter that web bloke's offer to accompany your feature online by sending a raw, uncut vhs tape - of course, after the feature was on tv.
12. treat the technical online staff like a help desk. it's their fault if your computer is not running because you did not plug it in.
13. electrical metrology, television and radio engineering is the real thing. a website can be made by any computer "science" undergraduate. don't ever waste your time (or manners) with those people.
14. don't hesitate to demand more and more online products (like meaningless support sites for your tv and radio programmes that even you don't have a clue about right now) even if the web team is already totally understaffed, underpaid and overwrought. of course, adding more people or more money is not an option. (i mean, hey! the money is needed for podcasting!)
15. praise how the broadcaster was saved again from being in the red not least by the money made on the web (which of course belongs to the tv people!) but don't give in one-tenth of a percent of salary raise for the staff in charge.

any resemblance to broadcasters living or dead is purely coïncidental. (but then again, what is not?)