Thursday 18 October 2007

Auntie loser

The staff cuts in the flagship news team at the BBC could end up being a good thing if it responds in the right way. News on the BBC has gone down in quality massively. Both the content and the standard are not worthy of the tradition that the BBC claims. Much of it is obsessed with celebrity and with advertising its own programs. When they do report a story, a lot of it is no better than the journalism that I posted about some time ago.

For example, they rely heavily on interviewing their own correspondents as if they are the experts. Even if they interview real experts, the effect is the same - once they have an expert opinion that agrees with the story they want, they create that opinion as a fact. This is at best shabby journalism and at worst misinformation. Nothing worthy of how the BBC likes to see itself.

If there are cuts, let's hope that they cut the celebrity bits. Let's hope that the cuts focus the minds of those who are left into reporting less, but higher quality (i.e. better researched and presented) news. This would be more than straightforward if they shifted the focus of the news away from being instant towards being more valid. After all, is it that important for us to about what is going on straight away? For us to have 24-hour presence at the scene of everything?

Studio Hack: Let's go to the incident site. Field Hack - any developments?

Field Hack: Well, nothing since I last updated you 7 minutes ago, Studio Hack. To cover this appalling refusal of life to imitate art, I plan to garner further shallow opinions from yet more passers-by whose ignorance is beneath contempts.

Very simply, no it isn't. We don't need 24-hour news for every single event. Why not reallocate some of those staff to reporting less news with more rigour? That way, fewer staff could be the way for us to get the news that the BBC claims to give us on its flagship programmes.

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