Idle Thoughts

24 hour news. Get up to the minute information about breaking stories from around the world. Never be more than 15 minutes away from a roundup of all the important headlines.

Except it doesn't work like that. Rather than using some of the huge increase in news-time (from a few 15 to 30 minute news programmes each day, to 100%, total coverage) to present in-depth analysis of the headlines, wheat we get are superficial sound-bite reports (never more than a couple of minutes long), repeated throughout the day. They frequently have the same content in the evening that they had in the morning and, so far as the BBC News channel is concerned, seem to avoid giving out specific information. Substituting wishy-washy opinions from bystanders; such as"how did it feel?", "what do you think?" and "has there been any reaction?" instead of the hard news bedrock of "what?", "why?", "where?", "when?" and "how many?" reporting of actual facts. Although to be fair, the "how many?" question is given great prominence when it's a death-toll, even more so if the news channels have pictures.

There also seems to be a move away from giving people technical, or any sort of factual information. For example, recently there was an "incident" regarding a chemical leak, we never were told what the chemical was, as if it's too hard for our little brains to deal with. Or (more likely) that the station will be accused of elitism by using words, such as acetylene (inferred from other information in the report), that are too hard for the general public. Even science stories, where you'd think content would be key are dumbed down to the extent that they can mostly be summed up as "something new has been discovered. It's very big / very small and is far away" If another agency has pictures and they're of something cute, small and furry, then these will be included and frequently pushed to prominence. Although, still without any information being presented to allow the audience to judge the importance of this new information.

However, the thing that really bugs me is the way a small number of headline stories push away all other news items. Even when there are next-to-no facts available to be reported. Over the past few months the big news has been regarding the "credit crunch" and the way a few executives (who may or may not have personally caused some or all of the problem) are effectively being rewarded for their actions. Now whether or not this is true is not the main problem. The main problem from my viewpoint is that this one story dominates all the news channels all of the time - although to be fair, there are brief breaks to keep up up-to-date on celebrity gossip and football (soccer). While these headline stories are unfolding, other lesser stories that have tangible, direct effects on real people get ignored. Rather than reporting the facts that have changed, or been revealed since the story was run earlier, we get a complete recital of the whole sorry train of events - just as we got 15 minutes ago when it was last reported. Surely the "lesser" stories that would get a mention, if not be headlines in their own rights on slow days are still worthy of news presenters' time? Especially when nothing noteworthy has happened on the big news in the past hour, or day.

Maybe what we need is to go back to the Teletext model, where it's possible to get headlines and summaries if that's all you want, and then to have alternate channels that deal with news in greater depth but at a lower frequency. So instead of regurgitating the same headlines, reportage, news tickers and superficial content 4 times an hour, these secondary channels would take each topic and give it an in-depth treatment.

After-all, if it's worth telling the nation that something has happened, don't we deserve the respect of having the full facts, too?