News - The lack of

[Tutonic]

Charlie Brooker hits the nail on the head once again.
 
What a sad state of affairs

[smilodon]

I bailed out on TV news and the red tops years ago and become more and more confused by those who still voraciously consume this type of media output (I cannot bring myself to refer to it as news). However it's not my right to judge someone else based on what thy do or do not watch on TV over the last weekend, so I remain confused but not judgemental. More over I'm posting to a community geared towards a mature, sensible (in outlook rather than age) gamer with enough brains to be able to finance and rig up a PC i.e. people with at least as much whit as me and probably a great deal more. So I'm probably preaching to the converted anyway. More than the fact that I think our news media does more harm than good in the world I am sure we should all still be free to decide if and how we become misinformed and mislead.

The TV news services and red top dailies only report what they do because enough of us (them) continue to buy what they peddle. We get what we want from the media and what we want it seems is instant gratification and the world reduced to it's dumbest form.

I've made a point of completely avoiding this story other than the very basic facts. In a few weeks I'll return to a trusted on-line news source and review what has emerged as the truth.

[TeaLeaf]

I stopped watching the 'news' on TV many years ago and a few years later I unexpectedly had an explanation of why I no longer liked viewing the news on TV.  A client of mine, a well-known ex-newsreader, said she stopped enjoying the job when following the retirement of one 'Head of News' the BBC appointed a new HoN who was not of a News background but instead came from 'Documentaries'.  She said this changed the format of the news program - she went into considerable detail of the format change in my conversation with her, but it boiled down to the news becoming 1-2 mini-documentaries which covered the first 15 minutes of what used to be a 25 minute News & Weather program, with the actual 'news' format then starting about 15 minutes into the program.

I thought about this and she was absolutely right.  I used to watch the news as it gave news in short, unbloated, un-opinionated items.  I no longer watch the TV news as I do not like the mini-documentaries at the start - I watch news for news, not documentaries!

I now take news from the internet, on my own schedule and cannot recall sitting down to watch an actual news program for a long time, simply as it no longer delivers news, it mostly delivers a documentary or opinionated, non-factual guesswork (such as some of the hysteria in the evening following the attacks in Norway).

[T-Bag]

The news as it unfolds is regularly wrong. I'm not at all surprised. You don't have to be a genius to spot discrepancies with the profile of what went down and what "experts" thought was happening at the time. However when a breaking story happens people hear about it and switch on the news. If the news isn't reporting it they'll try another station to find out details. This of course means a channel will just go on and on about a piece of breaking news. And, as tends to be the problem with breaking news, people tend not to have all the facts so they speculate.

Next time you see someone on TV after a breaking news story first look at who they're interviewing. The vast majority of the time it's someone with little or no intimate knowledge of the event, know little more that has been on already and fill the gaps with speculation. It's hardly surprising they are often wrong. People believing them is the more worrying thing. If you invite Greenpeace to talk about the Fukashima accident you'll get doom and gloom, if you invite the man in charge of the plan you'll get the best case scenario from them. If you invite someone who has written a book on 9/11 to talk you'll get Muslim extremist did it, if you invite a Muslim cleric you'll get a home grown terrorist did it. The news picks the experts, so they've already pretty much decided what they'll come out with.

As long as people buy/watch it they'll keep making it.

[Lameduck]

On Sky news today a reporter quoting from Adele's tribute to Amy Winehouse said she was "brilliant and blaze" instead of "brilliant and blasé". Standards!

[TeaLeaf]

The vast majority of the time it's someone with little or no intimate knowledge of the event, know little more that has been on already and fill the gaps with speculation.

It's that provision of background or opinion that turns it from interesting News to 'documentary'.  That's when I switch off.

[Tutonic]

Sit down and watch an episode of Chris Morris' brilliant The Day Today.

Now watch ITV News.

Scary stuff...

[Benny]

Let's get her fired up......clear..

So back to the real world and I had the misfortune of having 5 minutes to spare this morning before the school run. The telly went on and I watched a bit of Daybreak, or whatever it's called now. I'm no stranger to the show, the missus watches the mindless drivel at times and I therefore watch by osmosis or some other clever use of words. Tuning in the headline story was the gas explosion and the cordoned off street. For those not in the know, have a gander here.

So in the name of keeping us, the general population updated as to the events of the last few days, they show some long distance shots of a house that no longer exists, followed by an action shot of someone walking up to the police tape looking forlorn and pensive. Cut to the interview. This poor woman has been cadjoled into parading herself on TV and without a word of a lie, the interview followed the lines below (anything in italics is my own interpretation);

TV AM bird  (or whatever she's called) - "So, you're a neighbour, can you tell us about it"
Victim shuffles nervously and replies "yes, blah blah, house gone, can just see what's left of it from here, friends nad family helping out, can't go back yet whilst they investigate, so family giving me clothes etc, all very sad"
TV AM bird - "That's terrible, so, tell us how you feel about the fact that you're alive and lucky but there was a boy next door who died"
Victim -  "....."  I'm ****ing overjoyed, what do you think? Jesus christ, at what point do you think I'd be anything other than well chuffed that an innocent child got killed in these tragic circumstances you ****ing clown shoe.
TV AM Bird sensing some sentimentality switches to safer ground "So you have lost all your possessions and your house is pretty much gone, that must be hard"
Victim - "erm, yes, it's not great" What else do you want me to say given there's a kid died, I'm going to look a right prick if I say I'm gutted aren't I.
TV AM Bird - "That's awful, so...I'm told you have no insurance so you'll not get it back, is that right?"
Victim - "Yes, that's right" Great, not only do I look like I'm heartless, I look stupid too, and you've just rubbed my face in the fact I've lost everything.
TV AM Bird -"Thanks for your time, let's leave it there"


What a marvellous interview, I am now up to speed on the tragedy. TV AM should stick to what it's good at. Titillation and upskirts of presenters who are just on the right side of being 'sexy aunt' material and attractive weather girls. Unless all of you people reading this stop watching this shite it will never change. Anon should take up the cause, it'll be more productive than hacking Natwest..oh.

Steps to being happy
Stop reading the Sun after Diana's death and the outpouring of bullshit - Complete
Stop watching the news - Complete
Stop watching general entertainment/news crap - Complete
Stop interacting with human society....working on it.

[Blunt]

It's all kicking off down here

[smilodon]

My great regret is that I won't be alive to read through a history text book in a hundred years, and to see what future generations make of the level we have allowed our media and news services to sink. I think it would make an entertaining read.

I refuse to believe that I am somehow more discerning or intelligent or whatever than the millions of people who happily lap up early evening current affairs programs, the red top press, Channel 4 and ITV Nightly News and increasingly even the BBC News. But I find it harder and harder to understand how more people don't call shenanigans with most of the stuff these sources report. Some of the Daily Mail/Express headlines have become parodies of themselves they are so extreme. Yet millions of ordinary people just like me  seem happy to spoon it up on a daily basis.

Is it apathy? I'm pretty apathetic about a whole load of stuff, just not news and media. So perhapse each of us can only be interested in a certain amount of things and then by default we are completely apathetic about everything else. So my apathy is as great but different from a reader of the Daily Mail. I'm apathetic but just about different things. And your apathy is different than mine and so on.

This same apathy is probably the reason why no one will go out this weekend and close their Barclay's Bank Account. Anyone who disliked a greedy, immoral Bank that offered pretty poor quality services would have already left by now. The rest of us can't be arsed.

[Benny]

But, but, but...I'm with Barclays and I'm staying for a different reason. I don't care if they make money, as long as I'm in good standing credit wise and can get what I want, including the ridiculously cheap tracker mortgage they have me on - £295 mortgage payments all around I say. That and if I move I'll have to memorise a whole different pin number.

Smilo, your apathy makes me feel more at one with humans again, perhaps there is hope. A land of apathetic no-do gooders, not doing anything of any value and enjoying it. We can call it 'The Fens'.

[Penfold]

I'm with Benny. I think most people vaguely interested in their affairs do more than just flip a coin to decide which bank they join and what the benefits are to them.

For example I'm with HSBC and have been since they bought out Midland Bank all those aeons ago.

Every couple of years I review things and if I tell them I'm leaving without doubt they'll refund whatever charge it was that hacked me off or give me a credit if they've messed something up and it works well.

Besides which their Premier service is darned good with things like free travel insurance and global banking. Nice having no charges for transferring money from Sterling to my Euro or USD accounts and back again (and at normal exchange rates) = means they get my loyalty. Yes they have downsides but it's all to do with what you want out of it I guess.

One thing that gets me is that so many people never change their utility companies. Competition is a good thing and if everyone changed once in a while I'm sure prices would come down...

[smilodon]

Barclay's did bad things and it cost 'ordinary' people and their pension schemes money. Yet as long as we decide that overall we as individuals are better off dealing with them we won't do anything to show our displeasure. We send a clear message that it's OK to cheat and lie on a massive scale as we have no moral compass and we will never punish that company unless their wickedness directly harms us. We'll read the News of the World and the Sun as long as they don't hack our mobile phones, we'll bank with Barclay's as long as they don't cheat us directly. So to apathy we can add egocentrism as a basic human trait we all share.

Again I would consider myself a fully paid up member of the club, although my self serving endeavours are pointed elsewhere as I wouldn't bank with Barclay's if they gave mortgages away for free. And I'm also guilty as charged on the Utility Company front. I'm with an energy provider who was fined 1 billion Euro's in 2009 for being part of a Europe wide price fixing cartel. But the mass of other choices, price plans and such like means that my Apathy combined with my lack of a working moral compass will never allow me to change providers.

[Penfold]

Aye, you're right about the Utility companies. They should enforce a simple pricing structure that makes it easy to compare like for like. You can always try 'U'Switch though. all you need is your currently supplier and the details and it'll work out the cheapest alternative for you. You can even send them a copy of your current bills and they'll work it out from that!

[smilodon]

While on the subject of stupid news and to illustrate my growing despair with the BBC here's an interesting link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18618521

Specifically the caption under the picture of the new Nexus 7 tablet (me wants)

Google opted to outsource production to Asus rather than build the Nexus itself

Would that be the same Google that has never made a piece of consumer hardware? The Google that is famous for outsourcing all it's products i.e Android phones. Chrome Books and Google TV's to third party hardware manufacturers like HTC, Samsung and now Asus? Although they sometimes don't disclose who makes their stuff, the Nexus Q is made by a 3rd party company but Google isn't saying who, Google don't make mass produced consumer products. They always farm the work out. So what's the thought behind the caption? None I think. Still it's hardly surprising when you consider that the BBC does make the dreadful TV show Click "yesterdays news today"