[NickyS]

Not really pres-related, and not quite BBC News channel-related -- but just thought I'd share this remarkable story from Le Monde (link at end of post) about BBC journalists helping to save the lives of several migrants in France yesterday.

The story of how it happened from the BBC journalist is on the BBC News website

www.bbc.co.uk 

How distress call to BBC helped save six women trapped in refrigerated lorry in …
A woman spoke to us from inside the refrigerated truck in France, saying they we…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

[Keith]

As you say the fact that it mentioned The Andrew Marr Show and Prime Minister Theresa May might have been the major giveaways, and it was just the timing that Huw appeared directly before they switched back to the studio.

Switching back to the studio does rely on the necessary people being back in the studio and gallery. I imagine that normally during that programme presenters and staff might use it as an opportunity to take a quick comfort break. Getting presenters and sufficient other staff back in might take an extra minute or two.

[DTV]

Once again, this feels like a media-related story is being given undue prominence because it's what interests people in the media

Today, of course, the most important story going on in the world are new BBC social media guidelines. Top on BBC News website, 12 minutes on it at 11:00 TOTH, then covered from 11:45 until the TOTH, after which it was again given 13 minutes of coverage. Then we moved on to the much less important story of 65,000 people being ethnically cleansed out of Nagorno-Karabahk. Plus, of course, devoting 13 minutes to a nothing story (and one of only four stories in that half-hour) was part of "News Now - three hours of fast-moving news".

[Andrew]

There has been half a dozen breaking news push alerts about Dan Wootton from the BBC News app as well today, giving us every slight update.

[James2001]

I'm not sure even pre-merger this story would have deserved this amount of attention, even less so now when you're broadcasting to the world.

[DTV]

I'm not sure even pre-merger this story would have deserved this amount of attention, even less so now when you're broadcasting to the world.

Agreed. For all the concerns about whether the merged channel would end up as World News in all but name, a global News channel or a bastardised compromise of the two, it appears that what they actually went with was a secret fourth option - a channel with no real sense of what it is supposed to be doing, slowly covering a handful of seemingly randomly picked stories (an alarming number of which are basically 'and finallies'), but which is far too easily distracted by British media stories of limited relevance to domestic viewers, let alone global ones.

I stand by my view that the merger was (to a large extent) financially necessary and could have been done well, but, six months on, it's clear that it really hasn't. It's basically everything that could have been improved about the two old channels in their latter years (sometimes turned to eleven, as with the pacing), but without any of the redeeming features of either. Even the decisions that have some logic (i.e., attempting to copy Outside Source) fail to understand what made them work in the first place. It's just such a missed opportunity.

[harshy]

Even the graphics are that of a channel with no sense of purpose it dosent even know what world business report is as at 5:30am it’s actually just bbc news.

[Rolling News]

Even the graphics are that of a channel with no sense of purpose it dosent even know what world business report is as at 5:30am it’s actually just bbc news.

I've never understood why they don't use the WBR titles at 5:30am, especially as it's billed as so. My thinking is it's because pre Covid that 5am slot was 'The Briefing' followed by 'Business Briefing', then when Covid hit the whole hour reverted to 'BBC News'. But I would have thought the 5:30am slot would have been updated to World Business Report presentation in April this year or before.

[RhysJR]

There has been half a dozen breaking news push alerts about Dan Wootton from the BBC News app as well today, giving us every slight update.

And two notifications about a tree. All the pressing global stories of the week covered in depth.

[JamesWorldNews]

Pause for air:

youtu.be