Why on earth does every news broadcast use meaningless outside broadcast shots to fill up space?
For example, any crime story on the BBC has to have a reporter - or better call them commentator, for they don’t report - outside Scotland Yard (New Scotland Yard for overseas readers). There, the triangular metal signpost turns relentlessly: in the foreground, the “reporter’s” head in closeup, meaninglessly mouthing more mis-information and non-facts.
The same has been true of all the reports of the McCann case in Portugal. There, the police are not permitted to comment, but this does not stop the BBC (and other news teams) from posting a “reporter” outside the courthouse, the police station, the original holiday village, yet again telling us there is nothing to tell us.
What a waste of money.
And while we’re on the subject, why oh why do the news stations insist on putting their weathermen and women outside in a garden, on a roadway, up a mountain in the pouring rain/hurling wind/settling snow/whatever? What is wrong with a decent weathermap in a studio, complete with isobars, fronts and wind directions.
Get rid of puffy cloud-smiley sun graphics, please, and save money and time!
(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
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I always wonder why we need someone who is “on the scene” or “there” when the words coming out of their mouth could easily have been spoken by me, sitting at home: that is about as much ‘insight’ as we are usually given anyway. They just read off the press release, or a statement in any case.
Another favourite is:
“We’re reporting that…”
Or
“… according to unconfirmed reports.”
Who goes around confirming reports? And why are you telling us if you’re not sure it is accurate? Surely it is the journalists job to confirm reports BEFORE telling everyone. Or am I a bit thick.
Charlie, you are so right.
When I was a fulltime journo, I had to prove to my editors in blood if necessary that everything was a fact, verifiable by at least two sources, or one unimpeachable one..
How the world is slipping. More like Steve Wright’s Factoids than facts now.
Same with disaster pictures - what good is an aerial distant view; where does it take us; what use is it save to upset the grieving relatives or those involved.
For example, the recent Catterick area helicopter crash, the media was put about two miles away with pictures of wild moorland, when the sad crash happened in wooded farmland.
However, there it is.
I must admit to rather liking the old days in this respect. Do you remember the coverage of the Falklands Conflict back in the early 80’s? Compare this with the live reports from the more recent Gulf wars… Then add the embuggerance of the PM being (theoretically) able to pick up a phone and speak with the unit/organisation currently on Sky News?
People are keen to publish first and be damned with the veracity of their reporting! Are there any old fashioned Journo’s left (other than AngryOldWoman) out there now that Lord Deedes has left this mortal coil?
Well, I confess to being dinosaurish, but standards were standards. Yes, John Snow, Kate Adie, others of their high standards, crawling through grass with the soldiers or standing with bullets flying around them, telling the truth, all brought home to one the horror of war.
Perhaps seeing too many shattered bodies from the safety of a helicopter or at a telephone wire’s distance has anaesthetised us to the reality of horrors…
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