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(08-03-2023, 08:23 PM)bbctvtechop Wrote: (08-03-2023, 07:17 PM)bakamann Wrote: BBC News at Six putting Gary Lineker as their top headline of their primetime news bulletin feels like more of a waste of licence fee money.
At least, BBCWN putting it as a side-note to the UK migration law story.
It asks deep questions about free speech, employment rights and social media's rise in society. These things are pretty global in 2023. It's a big story in my opinion. Plus BBC News gets off on reporting bad news for the BBC!
“The BBC asked the BBC if there were going to be consequences for the BBC. The BBC has since confirmed to the BBC that there will be a full and frank investigation.”
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(08-03-2023, 08:26 PM)Kojak Wrote: (08-03-2023, 08:23 PM)bbctvtechop Wrote: It asks deep questions about free speech, employment rights and social media's rise in society. These things are pretty global in 2023. It's a big story in my opinion. Plus BBC News gets off on reporting bad news for the BBC!
“The BBC asked the BBC if there were going to be consequences for the BBC. The BBC has since confirmed to the BBC that there will be a full and frank investigation.”
That basically sums up every edition of Newswatch:
Samira Ahmed asks some BBC management on whatever question, and they always have a vague, general, generic reply, which is along the lines of "we're gonna look into it..." or "we're going to consider it...".
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2023, 08:34 PM by
ALV.)
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This sort of thing reminds me of that episode of W1A where Ian Fletcher has to be interviewed on the BBC News at Six, and the correspondent basically makes fun of the “official view” Ian has given, adding something like we cannot know the reality of the thinking of those in the “mystifying” building behind him (which is NBH of course).
It was also in the voiceover that “in keeping with the BBC’s strict impartiality guidelines, it’s crucial that coverage on the BBC’s own news channel is more negative than anybody else’s”!
They also find out about the damning story (Evan Davis going on Strictly Come Dancing whilst being a presenter of Newsnight) from BBC News itself!
(08-03-2023, 08:23 PM)bbctvtechop Wrote: (08-03-2023, 07:17 PM)bakamann Wrote: BBC News at Six putting Gary Lineker as their top headline of their primetime news bulletin feels like more of a waste of licence fee money.
At least, BBCWN putting it as a side-note to the UK migration law story.
It asks deep questions about free speech, employment rights and social media's rise in society. These things are pretty global in 2023. It's a big story in my opinion. Plus BBC News gets off on reporting bad news for the BBC!
Hardly the most important thing happening in the world today though, which you would expect the news top story to be. On a quiet news day it would be acceptable, as it raises questions worth discussing as you say.
Quite ironic, though, in this time of cutbacks and the WN merger, that the top story on WN is effectively a UK-story - whereas the top story on News at Ten is effectively a celebrity story.
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(08-03-2023, 08:31 PM)ALV Wrote: (08-03-2023, 08:26 PM)Kojak Wrote: “The BBC asked the BBC if there were going to be consequences for the BBC. The BBC has since confirmed to the BBC that there will be a full and frank investigation.”
That basically sums up every edition of Newswatch:
Samira Ahmed asks some BBC management on whatever question, and they always have a vague, general, generic reply, which is along the lines of "we're gonna look into it..." or "we're going to consider it...".
O/T: I quite wish there was something like ABC AU’s Media Watch - a lot more engaging and critical of the entire media ecosystem!
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CNN had Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources too, which was ostensibly an effort to uncover and counter potential biased reporting in the media but became too partisan, so was axed.
The idea was sound though, it’s a shame Newswatch is only a lip-service programme.
Peak Newswatch, for me, was when they had a viewer complain that they had missed the teatime BBC News on BBC One bulletin one weekend due to overrunning sport, which had caused the schedule to be slightly shifted around and the news to be broadcast slightly earlier than originally planned. It was all in the EPG but the elderly viewer had been planning their viewing by a printed Radio Times. They were invited into the studio to put forward their concerns and Samira asked them: “couldn’t you have just watched the BBC News channel?” to which they said yes but it “went into more depth” and they wanted a short summary bulletin!
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I wasn't hugely surprised by the Six leading with Gary Lineker, but I am surprised that the Ten is also leading with it.
What's ironic is that by drawing attention to Lineker so publicly, the BBC have inevitably made more people aware of his views that otherwise might not have noticed what he said on twitter at all.
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(08-03-2023, 11:07 PM)Radio_man Wrote: I wasn't hugely surprised by the Six leading with Gary Lineker, but I am surprised that the Ten is also leading with it.
What's ironic is that by drawing attention to Lineker so publicly, the BBC have inevitably made more people aware of his views that otherwise might not have noticed what he said on twitter at all.
The package seemed to be identical to the Six as well
Has there been cuts on the network news as well, and don’t the bulletins usually vary, maybe with a live explainer or a slightly different report rather than the Ten just being a repeat of the Six
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(08-03-2023, 11:10 PM)Andrew Wrote: (08-03-2023, 11:07 PM)Radio_man Wrote: I wasn't hugely surprised by the Six leading with Gary Lineker, but I am surprised that the Ten is also leading with it.
What's ironic is that by drawing attention to Lineker so publicly, the BBC have inevitably made more people aware of his views that otherwise might not have noticed what he said on twitter at all.
The package seemed to be identical to the Six as well
Has there been cuts on the network news as well, and don’t the bulletins usually vary, maybe with a live explainer or a slightly different report rather than the Ten just being a repeat of the Six
Tonight's Ten didn't have one international story in the headlines. All domestic stories.
A very strange evening.
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In reality, that’s a deliberate feature of the BBC’s self-coverage, as it can thereby demonstrate clear impartiality in the sense that it can’t be accused of “burying” a story. Admittedly, it sometimes goes “too far the other way” with stuff like this, as the W1A joke implied.
Some also see it as naval gazing or inappropriate for the BBC to spend too much time reporting on itself. I’m sure plenty of people thought they shouldn’t have bothered to report on Ken Bruce leaving the corporation recently, for example, but the fact is lots of other media outlets reported it - so it was legitimate news.
The BBC is essentially damned if they do; damned if they don’t with this - like with many thorny issues.
To bring it back to the NC: I can’t help feeling that the same logic applies. As other posters have said, simply “proper” World News without arguably “silly” opt-outs for the sake of “claiming” extra “UK news coverage” would be better. Yet if the BBC did that, they would be in trouble with Ofcom and the press. They claim to be unable to fund the service as it was (they, theoretically, could have done of course, but it would have meant deep and unpopular cuts elsewhere - they should have done that in my view as at least then they could have claimed they were prioritising important, uniquely PSB output) so something had to give. In the end, we end up in a sort of limbo - a halfway house proposal which could well end up being the worst of all worlds.
BBC World News neutered, to appease license-fee payers in the UK who want domestic news, it’s profitability therefore threatened - and a potential threat to the quality and reputation of the BBC’s global journalism. The “UK news” deeply unsatisfying and often irrelevant, such as Nicky Campbell’s show; many viewers would prefer a normal bulletin even if entirely world-focused. A channel which is a mess, and serves neither the UK nor World viewer properly. But it suits the “politics” of the BBC: it gets the press off their backs, it pacifies Ofcom and it allows the BBC to claim that they “serve both audiences” through “one channel, two streams”.
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Guide Dogs again for the third night running at 22:40.