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Archive: south ossetia

The 6 O’Clock News: “War? Not bothered”

11 August 2008 01:06

Categories: Current affairs, Media, Politics, Sport, Television

So what was the top news story on Friday? Of course it was the Olympic opening ceremony. Doh! Silly me!

But what else was in the news that day? An output editor on the 6 O’Clock News BBC News at Six, Katy Searle, had a tough job picking a story.

So what else? The housing market and the strains of the credit crunch continue to claim a good slot on the Six. Today’s repossession figures are startling and on another day, could easily be our lead story.

For those of you who look beyond our shores, strong pictures of fierce fighting in the disputed region of South Ossetia will be explained and analysed. Not a natural story for the Six? With Russia threatening a robust response, it’s right to be in the show.

So apparently a war in Europe “not a natural story for the Six”. And on top of that Katy Searle feels the need to justify the possibility that the story will even be in the programme! That is despite the fact that this important story was listed behind the “credit crunch”, a “news” story that is now a year old. Jesus. Does the BBC really believe people are this stupid?

Do people tune in to the news to watch the news, or do they tune in to the news to watch highlights of a ponced-up dance routine which they can also catch earlier in the day, later in the day and on a relentless cycle on BBCi? Let me sit down and think about this!

It kind of sums up why the 6 O’Clock News has not been a bulletin to take seriously for several years now in my view. Of late is has been shaped to become the “news” for people who don’t actually want to know the news.

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Okay, one more post about the Olympics then…

9 August 2008 14:56

Categories: Current affairs, Media, Politics, Radio, Sport, Television

This post includes some stuff that I might have written about in yesterday’s post if it wasn’t getting late. Plus, I had gone on and on for 1,000 words already which is quite enough for one post.

Chris Applegate said on Twitter:

One thing more tedious than the Olympics is people droning about how tedious the Olympics is. Turn your TV off and go out, you fucking bores

That is a sound principle and one that I agree with in general. The problem with the Olympics is that you can turn off the TV and go out all you want, but unless the place you go out to is an uninhabitable cave, the Olympics are impossible to avoid. Things like Big Brother or even US Presidential elections don’t get this bad.

Shane Richmond gets to the bottom of the problem with the Olympics:

What irritates me is that the media believes that we all subscribe to this fickle frenzy. So the Olympics breaks out of the sport pages and bulletins where it belongs and takes over the actual news too. I appreciate that the Games coincide neatly with silly season but is it really news that the opening ceremony (a) happened and (b) was spectacular? Both things were exactly what was supposed to happen, which probably makes them the precise of opposite of news.

What really gets me depressed is the fact that while this expensive shindig was going on in Beijing, two European countries were on the brink of war. And yet what was the top story in the news? This fucking stupid Stalinist fancy dress party. BBC News 24 had the two stories in split screen! I mean for fuck’s sake! Talk about priorities.

Several months ago I changed my default radio station to the BBC World Service precisely so that I could avoid the stupid “news” stories served up by Radio 5 Live and the other domestic stations. Yet the World Service has been banging on about the Olympics non-stop, 24/7, for the past three months — and that was before the games had even started! I am sick of it.

You see, my real problem with the Olympics is that it is a giant political event masquerading as sport. If it was sport I would probably quite like it. But it’s not sport at all. You can even see this in the BBC’s presentation of the opening ceremony. Who took charge of the broadcast? Sport journalists? Hell no, it was Huw Edwards and Carrie Gracie, two BBC News stalwarts. For me, that just says it all.

The only reason the Olympics opening ceremony should be a legitimate news story is to highlight how much money is wasted by governments on this pathetic political exercise. Do I care that 2008 drummers had fancy drums that lit up? Do I fuck!

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