BBC World News: Presentation

Hmm I don't see the problem with the new Hardtalk promo apart from the ego boost it gives Sackur... makes me dislike him even more.

Apart from the fact that it's stupid, a boring waste of stock footage from the BBC's Natural History department, and talks down the merits of the program. It's not supposed to be CNN's defunct Crossfire. And considering that they're so worked up in this rebranding about putting the emphasis on BBC World NEWS, you'd think they'd be trying to up the credibility of their programs, not dumb them down...

Stephen Sackur's supposed to be 'nasty' to people on Hardtalk, that's the point of the programme. It'd be a bit odd if he did a Huw Edwards on them!

I don't see how its dumbing the programme down??

No, he's not. He's supposed to give them a grilling but that's different to being 'nasty'. If you're just nasty all the time, you're not a good journalist. Tim Sebastian was never nasty to guests on HARDtalk. He regularly did some excellent interviews but he conducted them in a professional way whilst still cutting through the crap.

Because as the comment above says, it's not supposed to be a bloodbath. As i said initially, it's not supposed to be like Crossfire was - his aggressiveness is supposed to be about holding down people and making them answer questions - or cutting through the crap.

Buried in the promo is a new set by the way.

Does anyone else find the new trail for HardTalk (with footage of animals fighting) really embarassing? There seems to be an Americanisation with World - they're also starting to give certain stats in $US.
It wasn't long ago that World News America was launched, and they were criticised for using pounds instead of dollars. I remember on The Editors blog they gave a very good justification for it - "it's still the BBC" - but not much longer than a year later they're starting to use US units across the bulletins.