[LDN]

There were suggestions the other day that BBC News is no longer a world-leading news channel.

I think the exceptional coverage from Lauren Taylor about the Japan Airlines fire puts those fears to bed somewhat - I don't think anyone is covering this as well as them.

Really? I must have been watching a different BBC News channel this morning, because I thought most of it was absolute dreck.

Some truly dreadful questions and observations from Lauren Taylor (and these are just the ones I managed to jot down):

- To reporter: "So... it's quite a dramatic situation at an airport. Quite an unusual scenario, isn't it?"

- To reporter, 45 minutes after the crash: "In some ways, it's quite surprising -- well, perhaps it's not, depending what caused the fire -- but they've still not been able to get a handle on it, it's still blazing quite hard."

- To guest aviation consultant: "We did see the evacuation chutes there... Is it your understanding that they did actually have to use them? It wasn't an evacuation through doors, it was through the chutes?"

- To aviation expert: "And in your experience, how unusual is it to have a collision on a runway, given the kind of procedures there are with air traffic control, for planes coming in to land and take off all the time... Is it very unusual to have a plane hit another one?"

- Also to aviation expert, as we see fire engines squirting vast powerful streams of foam over the blazing airliner: "We're seeing quite a lot of foam. Presumably that's what they use to put out fires at an airport?

I mean... JFC.

In fairness, Taylor did ask some sensible and reasonable questions. But instead of putting those questions to a Transport Correspondent, or some other expert contributor, or someone else who might have a clue, she initially had no choice but to put them to BBC Asia Reporter Suranjana Tewari, whose name she repeatedly got wrong, pronouncing it at least three different ways (it was also misspelt at least once on the L3s).

Tewari's reporting of the crash was... questionable.

She repeatedly referred to the Japan Airlines jet as "the cargo plane" (often seconds after speaking about the passengers onboard).

She reported that the JAL plane had "landed with its nose down" (which would be an extremely abnormal scenario that could imply a possible loss of control by the JAL pilots immediately before landing). I don't know why she made such a specific claim about the aircraft's attitude as it touched down, but absolutely nothing I've seen so far (including the widely-reported CCTV footage of the crash, which was released over 30 minutes before she spoke; nor the many other videos that have since been made public) appears to offer anything that even remotely substantiates her allegation.

She also charmingly described national public service broadcaster NHK as "the local channel here".

We've had brilliant observations from her too, such as: "The plane landed and left a huge fireball behind it on the runway. We think that's when it collided with the coastguard plane." Yeah? Ya think??!

She reported that "around 360 passengers" had escaped from the plane; but then a few minutes later, said that "roughly 400 passengers and crew had escaped" (400 was the very first estimate reported by the media when the disaster occurred, but was clarified very quickly; first by NHK, then officially by JAL). It seems astonishing to me that such basic details could be so poorly understood and reported, given that the exact figures had already been confirmed, some time before she spoke, by JAL itself: 367 passengers and 12 crew, a total of 379.

Other news channels and outlets I was flicking through at the time had no problem grasping these numbers and reporting them accurately, and yet both BBC News presenter and reporter struggled with these simple facts. Taylor herself was confused by Tewari's mention of the 400 figure and asked the reporter about this, before then pondering that maybe the authorities had revised their numbers down from the original rough estimate... to which Tewari then cited an incorrect figure of 367 passengers and crew, total; and incorrectly cited NHK for that erroneous figure, when NHK had already been reporting the correct figures (367+12=379) for some time.

....and then a few minutes later, during the next two-way, she reported: "More than 300 people on board, and, erm, 12 crew." Yeah... that's good enough. Not like these details matter, is it?

Oh, and I understand that this kind of coverage isn't as easy as many excellent presenters and reporters make it look -- especially the challenge of vamping and filling airtime during a live and developing incident when you've got relatively little new information to share. I get that. But good grief, surely BBC News reporting should be better than: "Haneda is a very busy airport, lots of planes, lots of people, domestic travellers and international tourists and business travellers who are travelling through a big airport like Haneda airport."

And to top it all off, all of this coverage was just so f**king pedestrian.

As the plane stood motionless and burning on the runway shortly after the crash, the right engine continued to spin for several minutes, slowly ripping itself apart and dramatically shooting a massive storm of sparks and debris behind it. Not a word was said about this. Just more monotonous parroting of the phrase "dramatic pictures" every couple of minutes, along with Taylor's obsessive discussion and questioning with everyone about why the fire was so intense (FUEL) and why they still hadn't put the fire out yet (IT'S A FLYING BUILDING WITH HALF A F**KTONNE OF FUEL IN IT AND IT CRASHED) and how much longer it would take to extinguish (OMFG FFS IT'LL BE OUT WHEN IT'S OUT STFU).

When the entire tail section collapsed -- live on TV! -- Ben Brown or Martine Croxall or Christian Fraser or Joanna Gosling would have interrupted the repetitive, tedious two-way with the reporter, to draw the viewer's attention to the astonishing sight of the burning plane crumbling to pieces. But no, we first had to listen to the reporter finish her vacuous commentary, including everything we'd already heard 10 minutes ago, before this shocking spectacle was finally acknowledged... as having happened some time ago.

The eventual arrival of informed experts to BBC News' coverage was greatly welcomed, as it finally gave viewers some people to listen to who actually knew what the hell they were talking about. But I don't see anything to commend in how the BBC itself covered the story -- unengaging, ill-informed and uninformative presenter and reporter; confusing reporting of the most fundamental details (and of the only few confirmed facts!); repeated errors (as well as incorrectly citing another broadcaster for their own mistake)...

No.

In my opinion, today's coverage has not cemented BBC News' reputation as a world-leading news channel. It was just weak.

And I say that as someone who recalls the excellent BBC News/BBC World live coverage of other similar(ish) incidents involving airport crash-landings, such as Air France flight 358 at Toronto Pearson; British Airways 38 at London Heathrow; and Asiana 214 at San Francisco (...back in the days of two-headed presentation on BBC News 24/Channel). That was engaging and essential coverage; urgent, fast-moving, informative, dynamic, intelligent, inquisitive... and with an implicit, unspoken commitment to the viewer: something serious has happened, but we're covering every angle, we're getting our people there, and we're getting you the answers you want as fast as we can.

I sensed nothing of that as I watched today.

The plodding, lethargic pace and sh!tty attention to detail of today's BBC News coverage is a long, long way from those halcyon days; an even greater distance from the notion of a "world-leading" news channel.

Most of the BBC's own contribution to covering the story as it happened today was essentially nothing but white noise: just some baffled BBC News voices filling airtime over live images.

It was a genuine relief when we finally got to hear from some knowledgeable contributors. I think it says a great deal that the only good things about BBC News' coverage of this awful tragedy have been the intelligence, insights and context provided by people who aren't employed by BBC News.