From time to time, I make a point of watching all three main news bulletins on BBC1 - One, Six and Ten O'Clock. This is best done on a slow news day. It can be a fascinating experience, because you feel watching the One O'Clock that they are sitting there thinking - it's just pensioners and housewives can you hear me dear I said it's the news that's right Mr Blair, yes Blair, he's the Prime Minister.
At six o'clock it's all about the 'typical family'. Let's explain this to you of limited intelligence by making really simplistic analogies with the disposable income of a random atypical household. By ten o'clock, the news is being analysed for intelligent people who can hold two thoughts and play two roles simultaneously.
Natasha Kaplinsky is simply not up to the job. I watched her interview Caroline Flint. As a Labour Party member I thought it was wonderful; as a voter who expects journalists to hold ministers to account, it was a abysmal. Caroline Flint might as well have given a speech. A couple of times Kaplinsky tried to interrupt, but Caroline went on full flow, totally on message, getting all the right soundbites out. I'm not sure what idiot thinks the public needs a low-IQ dolly bird interviewing a government minister. One who usually makes a hash of reading the news from an autocue.
There again it's health service. Not difficult scientific procedures, just public service provision. Well, not even that, just one 'human interest' story of how some health trusts are cutting back in order to manage their deficits. We have a glamorous female minister, hey let's have a glamorous female newsreader interview us, because that's part of the BBC's mission - to entertain. Even on the News. Let's not present the facts about health trust deficits. Let's not investigate the conflict between balanced budgets and unlimited provision. Let's not find out who makes the decisions and on what grounds (and let's not even examine why the budgets are in deficit). You're watching at six o'clock? Don't worry about these dry points, they're for the important people who are still at work at six o'clock (haven't they heard of flexible working, home working; don't they know that the retired or ill, or full-time mothers have brains?)
Later was the news of the death of Ian Richardson. According to the reporter, House of Cards symbolised the Major Years. Er, well, no not exactly. House of Cards ran parallel to the fall of Thatcher. That was why (apart from being a great drama superbly acted) it is regarded as such a landmark in TV drama.
But my story of how the news improves during the evening falls down as a result of last night's Newsnight, a so-called debate on the Press Release by Marie Stopes Rise in abortions after Christmas. According to those debating it, it was entirely due to the greater number of 'children' binge drinking. Earlier in the day someone had said that January (post Christmas) and September/October (post holidays) are the peak times for abortions, and, intuitively, that makes sense. They gave a pile of statistics, but they did not seem particularly connected to the news story. And certainly the statistics for women up to age 24 doesn't seem to have any relevance to children binge drinking, which was the thrust of the non-debate. I'm appalled at the idea of a fifteen year old binge drinking, shagging the nearest passing boy, and having to have an abortion. But I also know that women in their 30s, 40s, even 50s have abortions, for all sorts of reasons.
It is actually a very complex issue. In general, people on telly can't handle statistics, they especially don't know how to discount seasonal and demographic variations. No one asked whether the age range of fertile women is increasing. In fact there was no critical analysis at all, just a load of hand-wringing of the "Isn't it awful someone should do something about it" variety. I was stunned at the pointlessness of the whole exercise so for the first time ever I submitted a comment to the Newsnight blog - number 18; I also commend 22 Leslie and 24 Jennifer.
Tangentially, I am thinking of embarking on an experiment. I have a theory that the BBC News Have your Say boards select the most illiterate, inarticulate, irrational and pointless submissions, ignoring those with proper spelling and grammar, let alone those that present a logical or evidenced argument. I am considering submitting one of each to various threads under different IDs and compare the success rate.
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