BBC One to Trial Evening News Summary

Well, judging whether someone or something is bias is subjective, so we'll probably never agree on this point. Undeniably, she didn't show balance though.

Vastly better. By miles and miles and miles in that I didn't feel like I was overhearing some bint shouting her views on the news down the pub.

Tonight's bulletin was far more clear, succinct and to the point; the inclusion of the vt of Blair added weight and it generally had the authority of a news bulletin.

Having said that, I still have a problem with "snatched". It's like BBC Sun rather than BBC One.

So hang on, where's the Midlands bit with Suzanne? Does that happen tomorrow only?

This is taken from a blog by Peter Horrocks, Head of BBC TV News. As you can see it does back up the assertion about younger and C2 audience being turned off by the traditional mainstream news bulletin. The whole speech is worth reading for some of the other issues you;ve brought up - like presenters being personal etc.

The number of adults watching BBC News on BBC1 and BBC2 for at least three minutes a week has declined from 74% of the audience to 68% in the last five years. And, by the way, watching for just three minutes is the industry standard measure - although three minutes of news doesn't seem very much to me. But the picture for particular population groups is far starker. The proportion of economic group C2 - that's broadly unskilled manual workers - watching has gone down by 8% in that period. And the number in the 16-34s age group watching has dropped by 12% in five years to 36% of the audience. That's a drop of about 2.5m young adults - simply lost to mainstream news watching.

Full speech here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/the_future_of_news.html

Awful isn't it, it has the feel of those ITV Entertainment Updates between movies on ITV2 & 3 but with serious news. All wrong.

Should we bother about less viewers? If people don't want to watch news then it's their choice, no-one should bend over backwards to make them watch by adding fluff. It's like trying to make more people want to do a physics degree by replacing half of it with a hairdressing course.

I haven't read Mr.Horrocks' speech but I hope he takes into account people who have an interest in news but wouldn't consider television or radio news as a viable outlet. Science reporting on any channel's news bulletins in particular tends to be extremely poor, often with a lack of basic understand and inaccuracy. Why should this ever be acceptable?

Obviously there are countless events that occur around the world and many decisions have to be made about the coverage. The fact is the BBC repeatedly follows the commercial press into reporting the most eye-catching dross. News needs to have a certain 'interest' associated with it, but this often leads to reactionary and dispropotionate items which have little influence on the vast majority viewing. Virginia Tech vs. 200 dead in Iraq the next day for example, child kidnappings that are chosen for their novelty value (i.e. foreign country) or days of speculation that isn't necessary (i.e. Prime Minister's resignation).

News is entertainment which the BBC understands. Killings or murders must be interesting enough for people to bother empathising. Science must only have a funny/uplifting story. Celebrities are important. Most of all, they have the right to harass anyone about these issues they deem worthy.

I would contest there is little that the BBC provides any more now the internet is commonplace. Press releases and sports scores can be collated by feeds and relevant websites with little hassle and without the original content being watered down. I also get the impression many journalist have little knowledge of their area (exceptions are there though) -- why do I want to listen to someone tell me information about something they know not much about? Best examples here are technology and science reporters.

In summary: Similar to the recent voting events in Scotland (with the BBC giving a very strong impression that people were denied a vote) where people couldn't follow instructions correctly to cast their vote -- if you can't be bothered make the effort, it isn't worth it. If you're not prepared to take time to understand complex arguments/events, you shouldn't expect anyone to simmer it down to a couple of salacious overblown headlines which make light of them. Unfortunately the media does panda to short attention spans and in a way always has, it's just more intrusive now.

Okay, one thing's screaming out at me - why not just do a BBC1 version of 60 Seconds? Okay, it might be a bit overbearing in red, but I'm sure that could be worked around, and frankly, 60s is pretty good for what it is.

The beeb dumbing down the 8pm bulliten for the audience who would watch eastenders, but why would the beeb assume that people who are watching in that time of day are less into news than the unemployed who watch in mornings? No offence there. And the problem with this is why do you need to make it more gmtv-style with NK - i assumed they were getting NK to do it as all she does normally is the six compared to Huw and George who do ten/six AND an hour on 24/world - but if your going to keep to the BBC News title don't change their style.

Please - BBC Press must be kidding themselves!

Also, NK doesn't always do the six on Fridays, we've regularly had Sian and Dermot -

a) why is this?
b) If Natasha's away who would do it?
c) Would someone else have to do the stupid opinion bits too?

His speech is actually very interesting. Here's a section that may put an argument against your "why bother".

What of the many people who do not live in a news bubble, who have an infinite range of alternative media and who pick up on what's happening through chat with their friends and through occasional skimming of magazines? Re-engaging these audiences, predominantly in social groups C2, D and E, will require some significant shifts for BBC News. We can build on services that already appeal to these groups - such as Newsbeat on BBC1, Five Live, and BBC Breakfast TV. But we know what BBC News currently stands for is a barrier for some of this audience.

Recent research we have done shows how different the perspective of this audience is from our traditional approach to news. For instance, they find the professional detachment of BBC presenters and reporters, in the face of human tragedy, baffling. They want our presenters to say things like "your heart goes out to them". Our research concluded "Whilst much of university-based education is focussed on teaching the ability to divorce emotion from intellect and argue "both sides of the toss", to this audience such equivocation would seem not just alien but perverse."

So should we respond to this and other insights into this audience? I can already hear the anti-dumbing down brigade limbering up for the charge. And I'm fully aware of how resistant our current audience is, for instance, to over-emotional reporting. But isn't it vital, for instance, to encourage all audiences to be interested in global news stories? If parts of the audience find our approach off-putting don't we have an obligation to change that approach? Isn't it more important for a public service news service to try hard to get tough stories to audiences that might otherwise turn away from them?

University-based discussion does attempt to be detached and emotionless for the understandable fact it needs to be. It isn't done on a whim but through centuries of studying which has concluded the best analysis of a situation is made without emotional involvement in it. This may be alien to some people (as reported), but maybe then the emphasis should be placed on informing people of this process rather than change it? For example: If you were learning and science or logic and found an aspect to be counter intuitive or 'alien' would you: try to understand it, ignore it or change it until it made sense to you? I'd hope you'd go for the first.

I've also ignored the fact that 'emotion' happens to be a point of view, subjective rather than objective. Once you've expressed emotion for one event where should you draw the line? Very few news items would be clear cut. The 'emotion' they attach to a story may also be not that of the viewers they're targeting -- should they express shock and sadness at the deaths of drug users? prostitutes? murderers? As soon as this begins to effect your decision making you can no longer claim to be objective and considerate to all views. Fox News is the obvious example, constantly pandering to it's owner's and audience's viewpoint at the expense of free debate and facts that do not support them.

If emotion doesn't draw people to the news, water-cooler gossip appears to be the next step. Tens of stories every day written about something-or-nothing that involves few people, effects few people and isn't ongoing simply to get people to laugh or talk about it. Even at the expense of taste at times. Looking at the most read stories on BBC news constantly throw these up: Man marries goat, Indian penis sizes etc. all get a large number of hits. But I don't think this alone justifies there existence, especially the 'ironic' pieces that have eye-catching titles for people to chuckle about. Some news isn't worthy of dissemination however many people would read about it. Similarly, some news might not be what some people want to hear , these shouldn't be abandoned or replaced with fluff. The arguments they propose wouldn't satisfy this.

P.S He really shoots himself in the foot with this:



Sure, attempt to get important stories across to people. But this exactly what they're doing less of -- I'd wager a far higher percentage of what I'd deem 'trivia' makes up a news bulletin since their push for more viewers than before. And how anyone could defend news beat as a reasonable source of news is beyond me.

BBC News Update Mock

What is this?