Defending the News?

Thursday, September 13, 2007
By Old Boar

In a small way this week the BBC has been defending it’s coverage of the recent ins and outs of the Madeline McCann story. This is not the great defence that lead to Hutton, but a more low key defence of some of the principles that underlay the BBC’s coverage of news generally. This is not a new subject by any means; any news organisation is always going to come under criticism, whether it is from power houses like Alistair Campbell, or ordinary scribblers like myself. And as news organisations who owe much of their popularity from sniping at others, they must take a bit of the rough with the smooth. But I think I detect a bit of anger from the powers that be this time. This time I think they know they have got it wrong. And this time the criticism is happening against a barrage of complaints about the future of BBC news from 2 very high profile commentators.

Let us go back nearly a week. The parents of Madeline McCann, it was announced, were decalred as suspects by the Portuguese Police. A couple of days later, the McCanns decided to come home, and did so. This has been a very high profile case and, for this country, quite unique as the press have been completely kept out of the cosy little loop of rumour and information which they normally enjoy here. So anything, even something very slight, it seen as newsworthy in this story. The Change of status to suspects and the subsequent return home was, understandebly, headline news. However, how on Sunday BBC News 24 covered the journey home was another thing entirely. I am stuck at home with a scalded foot currently and I watched the story unfold. Or at least I watched as the BBC managed to stretch a one line story, “THe McCanns return home,” over several hours. I decided to pen a lttle email to Newswatch, the weekly BBC programme that examines coverage ofthe news.

Today (Sunday 9th September) BBC news covered the McCanns decision to fly back to Britain. The entire content of the story is “The McCanns today have
returned to their home from Portugal.”

The story contains no further details as no further details are available. So that is the ENTIRE story.

For this one line story the BBC had a dedicated journalist in Faro. They had a dedicated Journalist at the East Midlands Airport. They had camera crews
filming the McCanns getting into their car in Portugal. They filmed the car driving off, they filmed the car arriving at Faro and being swamped by the
gratuitous press pack forcing the car to stop. They even managed a long distance shot of the McCanns boarding the plane.

Throughout all this News 24 kept up a running commentary of repetitive gibberish – all the stuff from yesterday. Why? Because there was nothing else to
report. I am amazed that they were not describing what clothes the McCanns were wearing.

Amazingly we did not get in-flight coverage.

At East Midlands, they were once again greeted by the press and the BBC. And here we got the only other single line of story – please leave us alone. (I
wonder why?)

And then more meaningless drivel – still reports coming in from Fara, and the McCanns aren’t even there any more.

How many minutes of news time were wasted in a desperate attempt to drag out a one line story? “The McCanns today have returned to their home from
Portugal.”

Is this how you waste our money? Was there nothing else to report?

Oh, and thanks to your reports and those of other TV stations, a pile of sick minded voyeurs came down to the airport hoping to get a glimpse of the
McCanns. They would have been better off watching News 24 – they would have seen HOURS of them!

This is becoming a rolling news disease. Desperate for as much as possible to be “Live” your editors are filling our screens with drivel.

You will defend this complaint by saying that their decision to come home is important. And so it is. However, HOW they came home and the fruitless
analysis of the information that you don’t have is totally irrelevant.

When you have news, broadcast it. DONT try to create it out of nothing.

What can I say? I was tired of being stuck at home. Before I go further I have to admit I have no fixed opinion of the McCann sage one way or another. The lack of information from the Portuguese authorities, limited by their own rules, means I could not even begin to speculate. Were the case in this country I would still not hesitate. Judgements of this kind are the pervue of the courts, not me, and I do not speculate on criminal matters.

On Monday, I recieved a kind mail from Charles Pamment, a producer at Newswatch.

Charles here from the BBC’s NewsWatch programme.

Thanks very much for the e-mail, the issues you raise is very important.

We are thinking of covering this issue on this weeks programme and would really appreciate your input.

A subsequent phone call and he expressed interest in me going down to TV Centre to be interviewed over my opinions. Unfortunately, my foot is not up to traveling (I can’t get a shoe on it yet) so the idea wasn’t to be. A little dissapointing, but I am sure the contributor they have found with two working feet will do an admirable job. Tarzan is not a role suitible for a unidexter, it appears!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 11:35 pm and is filed under The Rest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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