[LDN]

With the emergency alert going off a minute early, BBC News (UK) was still in the middle of a guest interview. The alert klaxons could clearly be heard in the background as the guest waffled on, and the presenter evidently wasn't sure whether or not to interrupt for what seemed like a very long time. He eventually did so, precisely as the alert ended.

Perfect timing for what followed.

"We've heard the alert going off as you've been speaking... Let's go to some of our live shots now, up and down the country, of people receiving this alert." (Edited gif below - the live footage from each location was considerably, awkwardly longer).

ibb.co 

bbc-news-emergency-alert hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
Image bbc-news-emergency-alert hosted in ImgBB
  Source: ibb.co

 

[*]Bristol: A curiously small cluster of people for such a buzzing city, sitting on a low wall, staring at their phones. Nothing is happening. There's no obvious reason for why we're being shown this footage. We could be looking at any group of people sitting in a park on any day of the year. 
[*]Cardiff: A view of another oddly quiet corner of another large and thriving city, in which absolutely no-one is looking at their phones, or giving even the slightest indication that they've received any kind of emergency alert. We're essentially being shown a handful of people having a nice day out in town. 
[*]Glasgow: A busy street! With many people! However, with the exception of a lady walking past as she speaks on the phone, the dozens of other people visible aren't even looking at their phones, and appear as oblivious to any alerts as the Cardiff shoppers did. Again, this is just more bafflingly worthless footage of people milling around a city. 


The "WTF was that" look on the presenter's face at the end of that footage speaks volumes. 

And if that weren't enough, then comes the torture of members of the public being asked, at length, for their vacuous thoughts and reactions regarding this thrilling event, because the new BBC News loves opinions more than ever! More time on opinions means less time and money wasted on all that dreary, expensive journalism! 

Lord (Reith), give me strength.

[Alf Stewart]

Lukwesa Burak confirming during the 14:00 headlines that any autocue reading ability is not needed for a job on the channel.

I don't understand

Some members of this forum have a really bizarre dislike of Lukwesa Burak and will find any excuse to have a moan about her.

It's frankly very odd.

In this instance you'd be forgiven for thinking that no other presenters ever have made a mistake when reading the autocue.

[Admin PC]

A brief interjection at this point to remind posters about some forum rules that seem particularly pertinent here:

- Please keep posts civilised and on-topic.

- Whilst we appreciate posters will have opinions about the performance of on-air talent, these views should be expressed using measured language. Insulting/hateful remarks will be removed and may result in a temporary or permanent ban from Pres Café.

- Do not make the same point/ask the same question repeatedly.

[leewilliams]

With the emergency alert going off a minute early, BBC News (UK) was still in the middle of a guest interview. The alert klaxons could clearly be heard in the background as the guest waffled on, and the presenter evidently wasn't sure whether or not to interrupt for what seemed like a very long time. He eventually did so, precisely as the alert ended.

And if that weren't enough, then comes the torture of members of the public being asked, at length, for their vacuous thoughts and reactions regarding this thrilling event, because the new BBC News loves opinions more than ever! More time on opinions means less time and money wasted on all that dreary, expensive journalism! 

Lord (Reith), give me strength.

Plus this resource-intensive UK output on a UK story featured extensive contributions from guests in…Geneva and New York.

Have seen a fair bit of the Channel this weekend and it’s still so disjointed and poorly thought out with a focus on doing fewer stories worse.  Yesterday most of the afternoon was spent trained on the same view of the Khartoum skyline with not much to see or say, today we had the heavily padded emergency alert stream with embarrassingly little to see or say - and when they did cover the only newsline to emerge (that a lot of people didn’t get the alert even though they should have done) they quickly moved on.

There’s still no attention being paid to the little details either - as someone else pointed out, the phone numbers for the Nicky Campbell phone-in were rotating continuously on the flipper during the Laura Kuenssberg simulcast.

It’s just all so slapdash.

[Kojak]

Plus this resource-intensive UK output on a UK story featured extensive contributions from guests in…Geneva and New York.

Have seen a fair bit of the Channel this weekend and it’s still so disjointed and poorly thought out with a focus on doing fewer stories worse.  Yesterday most of the afternoon was spent trained on the same view of the Khartoum skyline with not much to see or say, today we had the heavily padded emergency alert stream with embarrassingly little to see or say - and when they did cover the only newsline to emerge (that a lot of people didn’t get the alert even though they should have done) they quickly moved on.

There’s still no attention being paid to the little details either - as someone else pointed out, the phone numbers for the Nicky Campbell phone-in were rotating continuously on the flipper during the Laura Kuenssberg simulcast.

It’s just all so slapdash.

It’s dire, isn’t it? I did half-jokingly muse earlier on in the thread about there being some sort of sabotage going on. You could easily believe it from what we’ve been subjected to over the last few weeks. In reality, I suppose it’s that there is that little money left that there are no longer enough people to oversee things like the flipper. All these things - which are small individually, but all add up - are being overlooked, which results in what looks like (but obviously isn’t!) a very amateurish operation.

Hopefully it will all gradually be fixed in due course, but part of me fears it will take a catastrophic foul-up for this to happen.

[Newsroom]

I don't understand

Some members of this forum have a really bizarre dislike of Lukwesa Burak and will find any excuse to have a moan about her.

It's frankly very odd.

In this instance you'd be forgiven for thinking that no other presenters ever have made a mistake when reading the autocue.

I do have to reiterate my own position on this as my post was unduly deleted. 

I make a point of not naming names anymore for obvious reasons. However, I did make the point I am frustrated that the BBC are in fact to blame for their 'yet to be explained' recruitment process whereby presenters are tasked with operating their own autocue.

One presenter does stick out like a sore thumb. It's nothing personal. There is a raft of experienced talent still employed by the BBC yet not on the rota. Why not? 

And with nobody speaking to the interested public, where else do we ask such questions. 

A forum like this.

[strollfan]

Some members of this forum have a really bizarre dislike of Lukwesa Burak and will find any excuse to have a moan about her.

It's frankly very odd.

In this instance you'd be forgiven for thinking that no other presenters ever have made a mistake when reading the autocue.

I do have to reiterate my own position on this as my post was unduly deleted. 

I make a point of not naming names anymore for obvious reasons. However, I did make the point I am frustrated that the BBC are in fact to blame for their 'yet to be explained' recruitment process whereby presenters are tasked with operating their own autocue.

One presenter does stick out like a sore thumb. It's nothing personal. There is a raft of experienced talent still employed by the BBC yet not on the rota. Why not? 

And with nobody speaking to the interested public, where else do we ask such questions. 

A forum like this.

I think it's unwise to repost something that was deleted - if it was deleted, it was deleted for a reason, and reposting it only risks you getting in trouble with admins.

[TJTSW]

BBC News channel now feels like when GB News started out? It just feels very GB News with how they had to go round parts of the country about the emergency alert, to get peopels feed back?

[CATV]

Isn't that the normal desk in Studio B with an added front panel?

[Newsroom]

I do have to reiterate my own position on this as my post was unduly deleted. 

I make a point of not naming names anymore for obvious reasons. However, I did make the point I am frustrated that the BBC are in fact to blame for their 'yet to be explained' recruitment process whereby presenters are tasked with operating their own autocue.

One presenter does stick out like a sore thumb. It's nothing personal. There is a raft of experienced talent still employed by the BBC yet not on the rota. Why not? 

And with nobody speaking to the interested public, where else do we ask such questions. 

A forum like this.

I think it's unwise to repost something that was deleted - if it was deleted, it was deleted for a reason, and reposting it only risks you getting in trouble with admins.

I think you're missing something. 

I've reposted nothing! You should do your homework before posting. 

I've posted my view which is perfectly fine, polite and straight forward.