The Newsroom

BBC News Channel General Discussion

(November 2013)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
IT
itsrobert Founding member
DTV posted:
I don't get this whole Anti-London Bias thing. Of course the news will be biased towards London it's the main Economic Centre of the UK and more than 1/8 of the population lives there - if London were to get hit by a flood our Economy would be screwed. It's like the reason they won't build flood defences along the West Coast - it isn't economically worth it. For the news it is more justified to be covering Flooding in the Thames Valley near the Economic Power House of the UK than to cover less than 100 houses getting flooded in Somerset, and when the Dawlish Train line fell down they spent almost a whole day discussing that. It's like if there was a Tornado in Rural Yorkshire it would get less coverage than one in Central London.


That means then that 7/8 of the population lives outside London, does it not? The broadcasters are supposed to be national institutions but arguably favour a small proportion of the overall UK population by focusing too heavily on London. The reason they do it is because it's on their doorstep and cheaper than making the effort to go elsewhere in the UK. Broadcasters are businesses and it's all about the bottom line.
MA
Markymark
DTV posted:
I don't get this whole Anti-London Bias thing. Of course the news will be biased towards London it's the main Economic Centre of the UK and more than 1/8 of the population lives there - if London were to get hit by a flood our Economy would be screwed. It's like the reason they won't build flood defences along the West Coast - it isn't economically worth it. For the news it is more justified to be covering Flooding in the Thames Valley near the Economic Power House of the UK than to cover less than 100 houses getting flooded in Somerset, and when the Dawlish Train line fell down they spent almost a whole day discussing that. It's like if there was a Tornado in Rural Yorkshire it would get less coverage than one in Central London.


That means then that 7/8 of the population lives outside London, does it not? The broadcasters are supposed to be national institutions but arguably favour a small proportion of the overall UK population by focusing too heavily on London. The reason they do it is because it's on their doorstep and cheaper than making the effort to go elsewhere in the UK. Broadcasters are businesses and it's all about the bottom line.


It's a wider issue than that now. The BBC (and quite honestly the rest of the UK media) are becoming self obsessed
on UK matters, it's getting like the US here now, where you hear very little news from elsewhere (unless it's the Middle East, or former terrorists kicking the bucket)

Despite what you might think, the destruction from the Atlantic storms has, overall, been worse in other areas of Europe

Thank goodness for the internet, and overseas news channels

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=european+floods&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb&gws_rd=cr&ei=LWj-UoXjEu_b7Abm7oCIBA#channel=fflb&q=french+floods&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=nws
MI
mirage7
Report on C4 news tonight assessing if the floods could've been caused by climate change mentioning possible related floods in Indonesia and drought in LA. Good to see someone covering it from another angle
DT
DTV
DTV posted:
I don't get this whole Anti-London Bias thing. Of course the news will be biased towards London it's the main Economic Centre of the UK and more than 1/8 of the population lives there - if London were to get hit by a flood our Economy would be screwed. It's like the reason they won't build flood defences along the West Coast - it isn't economically worth it. For the news it is more justified to be covering Flooding in the Thames Valley near the Economic Power House of the UK than to cover less than 100 houses getting flooded in Somerset, and when the Dawlish Train line fell down they spent almost a whole day discussing that. It's like if there was a Tornado in Rural Yorkshire it would get less coverage than one in Central London.


That means then that 7/8 of the population lives outside London, does it not? The broadcasters are supposed to be national institutions but arguably favour a small proportion of the overall UK population by focusing too heavily on London. The reason they do it is because it's on their doorstep and cheaper than making the effort to go elsewhere in the UK. Broadcasters are businesses and it's all about the bottom line.


But that's not the point I was making - I was saying that understandably more of the News Bulletin is focussed on London, not because it is the Capital and where the News Media happens to be based but because more happens there and if it happens in London it has a greater effect. Economics and Politics related stories are mainly centred around London as that is where the City of London and Westminster is. Which takes about a 1/3 or more of the News at Six's Running Order away and it spends more of the rest of the time focussed outside of London than in it.

I do agree with Markymark in that I detest the Americanisation of the News in this country - I often tune into BBC World News as it isn't as rolling news as BBC News and I find what is going on in say Syria more interesting than about 5 hours of cutting between different reporters literally knee-deep in water or discussing the effects of the Dawlish line falling into the sea for about an hour. BBC World News actually covers more than one story in an hour, probably as it has different programmes which have to be aired.

The BBC used to differ from ITV and Sky as the BBC used to focus on the global effect of the news but now the BBC has become populist and sensationalist along with ITV and Sky and to an extent the US Bulletins. BBC Newsnight is one of the few news programmes in the UK that donates significant discussion and analysis to Global News along with Channel Four News and WNT on BBC Four (which are unfortunately on at the same time (I'm aware of C4+1)). I think the BBC in particular needs to rethink their editorial stance on global news.
TM
tmorgan96
DTV posted:
The BBC used to differ from ITV and Sky as the BBC used to focus on the global effect of the news but now the BBC has become populist and sensationalist along with ITV and Sky and to an extent the US Bulletins.

Oh please. The BBC is nowhere near being sensationalist. Come to Australia and watch our main news services, and then tell me that the BBC is sensationalist. Our news bulletins continually hype up small crimes and make them look like huge societal problems just to confirm to old people that the world is in fact falling apart, when in reality the opposite is true. They pay convicted drug smugglers millions of dollars for interviews. They don't investigate or cover any real stories with any depth, for example the people smuggling trade on our borders and the unethical methods that our Government is using to deal with them are continually glossed over and given no proper scrutiny.


Seriously, you don't know how bad "news" can get, and I can tell you from watching BBC World News that your public broadcaster is probably one of the least sensationalist news outlets in the world.
Cando, tweedledum and dbl gave kudos
DT
DTV
DTV posted:
The BBC used to differ from ITV and Sky as the BBC used to focus on the global effect of the news but now the BBC has become populist and sensationalist along with ITV and Sky and to an extent the US Bulletins.

Oh please. The BBC is nowhere near being sensationalist. Come to Australia and watch our main news services, and then tell me that the BBC is sensationalist. Our news bulletins continually hype up small crimes and make them look like huge societal problems just to confirm to old people that the world is in fact falling apart, when in reality the opposite is true. They pay convicted drug smugglers millions of dollars for interviews. They don't investigate or cover any real stories with any depth, for example the people smuggling trade on our borders and the unethical methods that our Government is using to deal with them are continually glossed over and given no proper scrutiny.


Seriously, you don't know how bad "news" can get, and I can tell you from watching BBC World News that your public broadcaster is probably one of the least sensationalist news outlets in the world.


Sorry, I was trying to say in terms of ITV and Sky it was becoming Sensationalist. Also BBC Domestic and BBC World have very different editorial styles, even on simple things such as Climate Change - BBC World News will treat it as fact (as it is) where as Domestic will very much treat is as a maybe true because they are so scared of the Daily Mail. BBC World News is less sensationalist than the BBC News Channel which has become very like Sky in that it now breaks news in stages as to build hype up. I'm not saying it is as Sensationalist as America or Australia but the BBC in the UK seems to be moving very much towards ITV and Sky's News Style which is a shame.
HA
harshy Founding member
I don't think it's sensationalist I still find itv and sky to do that
DT
DTV
I don't think it's sensationalist I still find itv and sky to do that


I know people hate using determiners, adjectives and pronouns on the internet but they are still very much part of the sentence. The words more sensationalist, seems to be moving and become like are not superlatives but comparatives, I was saying that the BBC One Bulletins have definitely changed their editorial angle in the last 5/10 years and not necessarily for the better.
JA
Jamesypoo
This week's edition of The Bottom Line is quite interesting with the subject being about big global TV formats.
ST
Stuart
Someone has 'nudged' the camera used to view the large plasma screen in the weather area . . . it now shows the bottom of the screen, and cuts off the top of the graphics. Confused

http://i59.tinypic.com/1zyagox.jpg
WO
Worzel
There was a rather entertaining moment on the news channel this morning when Nicholas Owen was presenting. A BBC staff member who clearly didn't want to be on camera started walking across behind Nick, then he realised the studio was live and started walking backwards out of shot.

Whether this was just the individual playing silly buggers or being camera shy - who knows.
HB
HarryB
Someone has 'nudged' the camera used to view the large plasma screen in the weather area . . . it now shows the bottom of the screen, and cuts off the top of the graphics. Confused

http://i59.tinypic.com/1zyagox.jpg

The camera and plasma move together and go to the level of the certain presenter that is going to be forecasting. A technical glitch moved either just the camera or just the plasma.

Newer posts