Here is the News

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Do you prefer the TV news as it is presented today to how it was presented 10 years ago, or do you prefer the way it was presented 10 years ago to how it is presented today?

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

and why, obv.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I am a news rockist: preferring newscasters tight-lipped, frosty, and maybe actually caring the tiniest little bit about the events they're reporting. As opposed to watching orange idiots trying to assume a dignified expression with one buttock perched precariously on a padded rail while meaningless graphics scroll over huge screens behind them.

I miss Moira Stewart on the 6 o'Clock News, with that oddly attractive 70's style orange and beige BBC globe behind her. Bah humbug.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Ten years ago, I was trading the friendly but boring upstate newscasters (Channel Six! Marcy Idiot and Ed Vague!) for the hyperactive New York City newsreaders. Ernie Ernesto! Sue Simmonds! My god, was Sue Simmonds excitable! I couldn't take her in the morning, she was too hopped up on speed. And she laughed at everything in this excessively cheery way. "Today, in other news, TEN PEOPLE DIED IN A HOUSE FIRE IN A THE BRONX!!! BWAH HAH HAH HAR HAR" ::cue maniacal laughter:: Don't even get me started on the weatherboys... Storm Field. His real name, as well. His dad was a metereologist who named all his children after metereological phenomena.

I went back upstate and Ed O'Brien was reading the news. It was surreal.

― kate, Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Ed O'Brien of Radiohead? Why certainly, I can see how that would be an uncommon experience.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm inclined to agree with you, Liz. Allegedly, Debbie Thrower (sprog of Blue Peter garden-tending Percy) was turfed off BBC News for showing *too much* emotion abt the stories she was reporting. But of course that was a lot more than ten years ago.

My personal bugbear - the TOP STORY. WTF? Not only does this trivialise the news enormously, but the order in which the stories appear should be enough to tell us which story is "top", though I often disagree abt the new's channel's choice of order. Decsribing it as "top" makes it sound like No.1 in the charts or something. I'm normally v. suspicious of ppl who accuse any medium of dumbing down its subject (as long ago as the 18th century, Thomas Hobbes sagely identified that most ppl who do this are simply having a sly dig at their rivals), but in the case of the TV news I'm led, almost inesacpably, to that conclusion.....

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:21 (twenty-two years ago)

No, it was a different Ed O'Brien. But considering how much Radiohead I was listening to at the time, it was very disconserting. This was the time when I spent too much time living by myself up in the mountains and started to go a bit mad and hallucinate imaginary friends, so it was entirely conceivable that I could have hallucinated members of Radiohead reading the news. But no, he was real, my mum saw him, too.

― kate, Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I caught Jon Snow with a glisten in his eye last night when he talked about the death of correspondent Gaby Rado. Unsurprisingly. I do think there's a rather colder new gen. though - the Raworths and Gurumurthis etc whose personal ambition somehow comes across far more strongly than any crusading journalistic spirit or the emotional content of the story. And yeah, the 'top story' thing is crap.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Gaby Rado has died? oh dear.

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, the assumption that everybody always wants to know something "when it breaks, whenever it breaks" and sometimes "wherever they are". they are all stressing this, all of the time. The news seems to be now subject to the same back-slapping self-congratulation as everything else on TV. Hey, aren't we wonderful, and you'd better believe it! I sometimes wonder whether this is because TV news producers are running scared of the Web - they know that the webbynet provides the opportunity to update ppl instantaneously on stuff & they feel a somewhat irrational, but still understandable desire to compete. hence the silly ads with the newscasters materialising beside random members of the public as they go abt their daily business to tell them "the latest" (no noun is now deemed necessary). I'm waiting for a spoof where the unfortunate Joe punches them in the gob or shouts "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Maybe someone's already done one...

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:42 (twenty-two years ago)

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,922640,00.html

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 08:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been a Today programme man since time immemorial. Nothing better tha John Humphreys snarling at a politico in the morning.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Kris coposhashy is now on the big time. I think one of my former classmates inhighschool is now a reporter for one of those stations

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked it better 10 years ago because I was 13 and didn't have to pay attention to all this crap.

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

My boss is convinced there's something a bit suspicious about Gaby Rado's death.

Moira Stewart's career high-point HAS to be playing an alien space lizard dragon thing on The Adventure Game.

― caitlin (caitlin), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought maybe there *is* something suspicious abt Rado's death.

Gronda Gronda Rangdo!

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.ibsys.com/2002/0104/1169446.jpg
http://www.upn9.tv/images/bios/biospot-storm.jpg

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

the weatherman on Scottish always stood in front of his map so that Orkney was right behind his ear, making him look, for a few moments each evening, like a Vulcan; i prefer this, obviously

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

only half Vulcan, shurely!

Does anybody like text scrolling along the btm of the screen? Sky News do it all the bluddy time. The BBC do it sometimes. I don't think it enhances the news-viewing experience.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 06:00 (twenty-two years ago)

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