Quality of News Coverage

[ixion]

Is it just me or has the quality of news reporting/coverage went steadily downhill over the years - at the moment BBC and Sky seem unable to report on anything but Libya to the complete exclusion of all else(I seem to remember something important happening in Japan) - in general news correspondents seem ill informed and have to resort to showing pre-arranged News Conferences without critical comment or asking other correspondent or members of the public who just happen to be in the right place inane questions like "what is your sense of whats happening there"!

[anotheoldgit]

It is just that it is the hot news of the day, last week Japan got the wall to wall coverage, and I am sure that if something else major happened, Libya would go on the back burner.

[hellywelly4]

I agree. glad I'm not the only one who thinks that.

[Sqad]

ixion.....when there is a disaster....famine, death, etc ....people run for the high moral ground with compassion and understanding, but there is only so much of compassion and understanding and it soon runs out. One often gets "sensitized" to human suffering, bored, if you like and this is picked up by the media in an effort to ease your boredom and get you running back to that high moral ground which we all like to occupy.

Iraq, Haiti, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Japan and today.....Libya........and when you are fed up with that......the media will move on............they are experts in the field.

[Sqad]

Ooops! your question.....no, I think if anything, reporting has improved....changed.........up to the minute.

[ladybirder]

Don't know about BBC but I've had Sky on most of the morning and they have had other stuff on like Japan and George O and the Budget. But mainly Libya which is as it should be I think.

[tamborine]

Middle East news - Aljzeera; also has 'hot news' below. Internet is great for not interfering with regular tv boardcasts

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

[ixion]

I agree that Libya should be the main story at the moment, but it is just plain lazy to ignore the rest of the world meantime - most of the coverage seems to be a loop reiterating what they said 15min previously - very little of it seems up to the minute!

[gina32]

i said the same thing myself, is nothing else going on in the world?

[237SJ]

I`ve just been in the Middle East and Aljazeera seem to cover more world news. They were showing the current news with Libya and Japan but were also covering stories such as elections in Haiti and had a debate about family planning reform in the Philippines. It`s nice to watch news from a station that admits there is a world beyond Europe and America. Even their weather reports were better than repetitive BBC World that doesn`t like to think that UK weather exists. They`re too PC to mention it and would rather discuss the wind direction in Abuja.

[andy-hughes]

This is the legacy of 'rolling' news.

With the best will in the world, there are hige swathes of time when nothing of any not happens anywhere, so the news programmes are reduced to analysing current situations in ever more microscopic detail, which then ceases to become news and becomes analysis / opinion - and not always from people qualified to deliver either.

[AB Editor]

A brilliant excerpt from Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe about rolling news.

Be warned though, there is a little bit of strong language ahead!

Ed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRmE0_n0K4

[dustypuss]

If your bored try this

http://www.tvchannelsfree.com/channels/3/News

[rov1100]

I think the British public are being brainwashed!

An alternative is to watch Russia Today or Al Jazeria on Sky who give 24 hour news.

Its amazing how the versions differ from the BBC.

[Gromit]

I have been watching Aljazeera's coverage of the unrest in the middle east, and I have to say it is far better than the BBC's. That is hardly surprising as that region is their domain, but what is shocking is how bad a job the BBC, ITN and Sky are doing.

[ichkeria]

"rov1100
I think the British public are being brainwashed!
An alternative is to watch Russia Today or Al Jazeria on Sky who give 24 hour news.
Its amazing how the versions differ from the BBC. "

These channels differ from the BBC in different ways:
Al Jazeera is more impressive because it is a genuine world news channel: the BBC has a similar channel called "BBC World" but it is, alas, only available abroad (it is commercially funded and therefore may not be shown in Britain)
Russia Today (RT) on the other hand, differs from the BBC, and all other channels, because it is complete crap. Full stop