Local news

[slimfandango]

What is the local news like in your area? In Scotland, it's really funny. It's just 'the main news' but with a scottish twist. Just after you've seen the main news!

Main news: Pope dies; tsunami disaster; Blair calling election.

Scottish news: Pope who died once visited Scotland; someone in Scotland once met someone whose friend once visited the tsunami region; Scottish parliament 'still expensive' despite Blair calling election.

Is it just as bad in your region?

[silly moo]

YES
I think it's prob the same the world over.

[luckyboy]

And it'll be the same for the next week..so be warned.

[IndieSinger]

Haha that's exactly how Scotland Today is, slimfandango! That made me laugh. The amount of times they start with "Well, as you've just heard..." Especially at the time of the Jodi Jones trial around Dalkeith. "Well, as you've just heard, the courts have been given new evidence in the Jodi Jones trial, so we're going to go back over that but drag it out over the whole programme instead."

English regional news isn't quite so bad, but the stories are very often quite... weak. At least BBC Scotland's regional news programmes cover a whole country and so have jucier news items. It seems no matter when you tune into Calender or Look North, you will always be told that a pensioner from Rotherham has been beaten up.

Side fact: Where I live, I am not covered by one single ITV region. We can tune into two different ones, but the news items are nothing to do with anything remotely close to me. (Conversely, there is some overlapping in the UK and some places are covered by two regions!)

[Zen]

We get the same crap with our local Tv news( Yorkshire) We used to call it the Yorkshire connection,Ex Yorkshire sailor killed in Titanic disaster,man who says the pope once waved at him visits Leeds.Problem is we live in Lincolnshire and have to put up with all the Yorkshire crap and that includes richard Whitely!!!!!

[Chillum]

When I migrated to England, one of the things which pleased me no end was the realisation that their local news was equally as crepe as ours.

There is a tale from the Aberdeen Press & Journal that states that the sinking of the Titanic was reported as "North East Man Lost at Sea".

I never saw that one, so I can't guarantee its authenticity. I did, though, read the front page headline "Police Seek Man with Ferret" ...and my all time favourite, "Prisoner on the run from Craiginchess ( the local prison). Quote(ish) from Prison Governor " He was last seen by the prison gates, which he'd been sent to clean." God I do miss it, sometimes.

[Bangkok]

I thought the Titanic quote was supposed to have been the Dundee Courier.

[Hgrove]

Years ago I did a course entitled 'information and society' in which we looked at the way newspapers present news.  Basically, to whip up interest in the readership, papers look for a way to link the news to the area they are in, hence 'pope once visited scotland'.  Presenting the Tsunami disaster, they would look to interview a Scottish person who was there;  failing that, someone who knows someone who was there or someone who once was there etc.

[jno]

The point of newspapers and broadcasts is to try to tell people things that will interest them personally, and that will often mean locally. In a country where all the big papers are published nationwide, that's virtually impossible; but Britain is unusual in that respect - other countries have a more vigorous local and regional press. Let's face it, 'Titanic sinks' might seem like an interesting but unemotive story but it would have hit you much harder if someone in your street had died on it.

So I loved the Gloucester newspaper headline about Charles and Camilla - 'Tetbury man to wed'.

[slimfandango]

LOL

(loved the prison gate one)

[luckyboy]

' Tetbury man to wed.'

LOL.priceless.

[milly143]

our local news is awful! They get excited if someones boiler breaks down, they would use it as their top headline. they also get viewers to send in photographs of todays whether, well I suppose it is a nice idea but it's only a bit of rain, I want something impressive like a giant snow and hail storm in the middle of summer while people are out on the beach. I don't like their patronising banter either. but never mind, guess I could just switch over.

[hopalong]

I am sorry you find the death of an religous leader uninteresting.  I can only imagine you are one of those Scottish anti Catholic bigots

[cockneyexile]

try living in wales mate! we have to suffer wales today where the brother of john humphreys (bob) presents the sports section like an excited schoolboy and main presenter sara stuckup edwards talks down to you .still there is one good thing derek brockway the weatherman with st vitus dance this guy cannot keep his hands still and appears to be a bit stoke on trent(cockney slang)oh to return to the days of london tonight

[cockneyexile]

second thoughts bring back NATIONWIDE