BBC News thread

Probably because Fox viewers don't know how to change the channel

I don`t think many people would argue with that c@t, the point others are making is that this article is using the fact that News 24 was showing HardTalk at 12.45 when Sky was showing news as normal.

If this so called Editor-in-chief of Guardian Unlimited had checked another article on the site she edits, she would have discovered that News 24 was showing HardTalk because they were broadcasting from emergency facilites, which were also being shared by BBC1 news. HardTalk was showing because the studio facilites at Millbank were needed for preperations and broadcast of the One O Clock News. It is just one example of sloppy journalism at Media Guardian (at least on the online edition).

Not just the online edition - Emily Bell's Monday columns are always printed in the actual editions. I read it this morning and was astounded she didn't point out that fact. It actually creates a devastating flaw in her concluding argument!

And she is the Editor-in-Chief!

It's a bit difficult to argue too strongly with her mistake though - she will just happily admit that she and most journalists are watching Sky News. Still sloppy journalism and unfair on the BBC's part - i hope they complain.

Oh, for heaven's sake, grow up.

If it really has had an impact on your lives, write to the reader's editor. I'm sure he'll tell you to f-ck off in slightly more technical and grammatically accurate terms.

She was making a statement of fact, that the BBC cannot dispute.

I really think you should think about how tediously minor your dispute is before shouting off about it. To judge one woman's entire journalistic credibility on that sentence, which, as I have said, was a statement of fact, really is pathetic.

I agree and in essence, what she was more or less true and I think the BBC will acknowledge that... not a good time to compare Sky News to N24 but to be quite honest, they should have better provisions in place so that if they DO get a power cut at 7 am on a Friday morning, they DON'T have to replace their entire news output with pre-recorded and repeated material for a time, then having a reduced service for the best part of the day.

The reduced News 24 was totally inadequate during Friday and anybody else channel hopping would have immediately switched to Sky, irrelevant of the power problems they were having.

Why don't you try running a news channel with low power. Most of TVC's computers were turned off. If ITV News channel lost most power I would imagine they'd probably give up with everything, and just show a black screen all day.

You completely missed the point of his post!
It's not just about what to do when it happens....but stopping it from happening all together! It really isn't all that acceptable for millions of viewers around the country (and perhaps around the world) to be left with black for hours (not so much in this example) as part of the annual BBC power cut.

That isn't the issue, the magnitude of problems that occured shouldn't have been allowed to - if there are power problems, they should have provisions to ensure that their entire news output isn't largely affected.

The BBC is a huge organisation, with a huge amount of news output. I don't know about the config they have there at TVC but they should have provisions to ensure that if they do have problems, they have back up aftyer backup to turn to.

It might all be very exciting, but for a radio station, national news channel, international news channel and a number of different news shows to be affected is not acceptable.

If it was a commercial broadcaster, heads would roll as it would most liklely result in hundreds of thousands if not millions of lost ad revenue which would be as a direct result of lost viewers/listeners, whch isn't good news.

The BBC has admitted that there are lessons they must learn in future following the incident, which to me is an admission that they know they could have done more to prevent such an incident.

Well, no-one can dispute the fact that HARDtalk was showing on N24 at 12:45pm on Friday - as stated in the article. However, the point is that she didn't acknowledge at all the extraordinary circumstances. It's a fair point that the BBC should have better contingency plans, and that the fact that regular N24 programming was knocked off air was as a result of poor planning - but that wasn't the point she was making.

She said:

"...[the BBC] has still not grasped the nettle of continuous news as firmly as it should. At 12.45 on Friday, News 24 was screening a no doubt fascinating Hard Talk programme with David Attenborough."

She was implying that the appearance of HARDtalk at that time on that day was an editorial decision, a choice to ignore rolling news in favour of showing a pre-recorded programme. That is a misrepresentation.

I'm personally not judging the woman's journalistic credibility at all, but I'm afraid the statement that was made in the article was - whether by design or not - inaccurate and misleading.

But they didn't! I'm sure Hardtalk was only shown twice on News 24 on Friday, once so that the presenters could be changed in the Breakfast set and to give time for the Westminster backup to be made ready and once so that preparations could be made for the One O'Clock news. I'd hardly call that "the best part of the day".

This maybe a circular argument but perhaps it is the lack of enthusiasm to "keep the news rolling, whatever the situation" that provoked her point.

We here at the TV Forum know the problems they were having. The lay viewer probably won't, and probably wouldn't care either. There are no time for mistakes... viewers aren't forgiving; if they're not getting what they want from one channel, they'll turn to another.

My point more regards the prevention of the problems they had. Better planning and provision would have ensured that would have been able to show live rolling news despite of any power problems that may occur. The line "oh we're having problems, stick HARDtalk on' isn't good enough... the interruption of output should NEVER have happened and perhaps it is this ethos that she more refers to.

Ofcourse, implying that the HARDtalk show on at that time is a normal event isn't entirely a fair argument, but the ethos and lack of enthuisaism that allowed the problem to occur to which I gather she sees BBC News 24 as having, is true.

When I worked in IT, loss of any service, no matter how small was utterly not acceptable... nor excusable. This should always be the case, expecially in televsion. I know fluke occurances do hpn, but can be excused when the people involved in preventing such incidents can say hand on heart that they did their best to prevent it. "We will learn lessons from this" suggests this not to be the case.