Monday, September 10, 2007
Isn't British policing wonderful? Isn't foreign policing awful? Wouldn't things just be better for everyone if British police officers policed the planet?
It would seem that nothing else happened over the weekend. Yes BBC News 24, I'm looking at you. Blanket coverage of the McCann's driving to the airport, then repeated ad nauseam until the plane they were on touched down in the UK, then that was rolled around until they returned home to the village they live in, now that's swarming with reporters with no news to report.
There's been talk over the last weeks of how the BBC should cut back on it's digital channels so that minority interest shows like The Today Programme on Radio 4 aren't axed. Now, as far as I'm aware Today is only listened to by politicians, newspaper columnists who need inspiration to fulminate against the world and retired early risers in the counties. It's The Archers for Westminster folk, of practically no use to anyone else. Still, I'd be quite happy to sacrifice BBC3 to keeping it open, if it could be sealed in concrete, along with the casts of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and TittyBangBang , and dumped in the North Sea, then that is something to be applauded. But hands off BBC4 which, with a few exceptions, is like Radio 4 only people pay attention to it. News24, I still don't understand why our money is wasted on this. If you watch News24 then you realise very quickly that, just because something newsworthy could happen any time, that does not mean that news is happening any time. Or rather, there is lots of news going on that the BBC don't bother covering. It increasingly seems that when anything happens outside of Washington then the BBC turn over coverage to ABC. I can't remember Western Africa cropping up in the news since Mark Thatcher and a load of ex-Eton pupils decided to try and take a country over for a laugh. Those little Russian or ex-Russian states round the edge of the old U.S.S.R. don't get a look in (is there still a civil war going on in Chechnya? I watch News24, so I don't know). And China? Supposedly Murdoch dropped the BBC from a satellite TV package he wanted to flog to the Chinese people, I don't know why because they only ever get mentioned in the financial news.
So yes, let's shut down News 24 and BBC3, and give the money to John Humphrys for his pointless little show.
It would seem that nothing else happened over the weekend. Yes BBC News 24, I'm looking at you. Blanket coverage of the McCann's driving to the airport, then repeated ad nauseam until the plane they were on touched down in the UK, then that was rolled around until they returned home to the village they live in, now that's swarming with reporters with no news to report.
There's been talk over the last weeks of how the BBC should cut back on it's digital channels so that minority interest shows like The Today Programme on Radio 4 aren't axed. Now, as far as I'm aware Today is only listened to by politicians, newspaper columnists who need inspiration to fulminate against the world and retired early risers in the counties. It's The Archers for Westminster folk, of practically no use to anyone else. Still, I'd be quite happy to sacrifice BBC3 to keeping it open, if it could be sealed in concrete, along with the casts of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and TittyBangBang , and dumped in the North Sea, then that is something to be applauded. But hands off BBC4 which, with a few exceptions, is like Radio 4 only people pay attention to it. News24, I still don't understand why our money is wasted on this. If you watch News24 then you realise very quickly that, just because something newsworthy could happen any time, that does not mean that news is happening any time. Or rather, there is lots of news going on that the BBC don't bother covering. It increasingly seems that when anything happens outside of Washington then the BBC turn over coverage to ABC. I can't remember Western Africa cropping up in the news since Mark Thatcher and a load of ex-Eton pupils decided to try and take a country over for a laugh. Those little Russian or ex-Russian states round the edge of the old U.S.S.R. don't get a look in (is there still a civil war going on in Chechnya? I watch News24, so I don't know). And China? Supposedly Murdoch dropped the BBC from a satellite TV package he wanted to flog to the Chinese people, I don't know why because they only ever get mentioned in the financial news.
So yes, let's shut down News 24 and BBC3, and give the money to John Humphrys for his pointless little show.
Labels: BBC, Madeleine McCann, media, news, police
