Thames Whale dies

It's getting the coverage it deserves - and the people want.

The Iraq Election Result may politically be more important, but the general public will be much more interested in this Whale story - and it's far more deserving of air time than constant "Is George Best Dead Yet?" updates!

I thought its been a load of whales jiz today. I got in this evening, BBC + sky were covering with detailed and ponderous analysis . ITV lead with it , CNN featured it .
Really if this had been in Bristol or elsewhere would the news channels have given it a second look.

This tiny country 's news makers have lost perspective with this one. I feel as if we are in a permanant silly season.

Broken News comes to mind...

Sky have triumphed with this story. It may not be the most important news story but it's certainly a Friday story, so their continuous coverage was the one to watch.

A PR firm whose offices overlook Battersea basically stopped working to set up a blog that did a rather good on-the-spot job... and were subsequently interviewed both by Sky (live) and the BBC (looped on BBCi)

It is the perfect story for the rolling news channels because they can easily get live pictures and update the story regularly and people will tune in and watch it because it is so unusual.

Judging by the number of people on the banks of the Thames, it has caught the imagination of the public. Just because it's not a serious story in the traditional sense does not mean it is not newsworthy. Most people will have been talking about it last night.

However, I wonder if the whale had swum up a river in a northern city whether it would have got as much blanket coverage. I doubt it somehow.

There were lots of people on the banks even at 8.30 when i walked by on my way home from work...Sky have got a good commentry of who's who and whats goingon during the rescue opperation thats taking place now..

Fox News took the feed for a while, but they were totally confused as to what was going on as usual. Clever bit of Sky publicity as soon as Fox took audio from Sky, Martin Stamford welcomed viewers from Fox accros the Atlantic.

Fox sounded surprised and said they must be monitoring their every move...

Most of the ITV Lunchtime news summary was taken up with this story.

Steve Marsh is talking on bbc news 24 and keeps saying the press helicopter was directly above causing the whale distress and has been moved away by police. Are they talking about the sky copter

The tone of all this blanket coverage is getting reminiscent of the Brass Eye episode about Karla the Elephant.

News24 have also had their helicopter moved further away from the scene - at one point it was directly above the whale, it's now much further away with the camera zoomed further in to compensate.

Although this coverage is fascinating and intriguing, I find it all somewhat overwhelming - I think a break is in order to concntrate on some other news, after all, the world's still turning!

Incidentally, Tim Willcox hasn't had a day off in nearly two weeks. Now he's back again for more, that's commitment.

It's a good story, with a couple of clear outcomes and naturally the hope is that it'll be successful.