Here is my licence to be in the Pit : pissarsefuckwankturd.
What’s up with you BBC News 24, you are such a lazy repetitive boring channel. You repeat the same newsitems word for word over and over and over again, there is a war in progress yet you can’t find anything new to cover.
Normally I wouldn’t rant about a crap channel, but this is a BBC channel! The BBC are just about the most competent broadcasters out there! Their News website alone is (for many, and me) the best and first source for news online. So why is their 24 hour news channel not better? Sky (eugh) News has been the best to watch so far. Gets wind of things hours before BBCN24 (and quite a bit before all other channels, seemingly). Every single fact during this war, and during the WTC disaster was covered first on Sky News and Last on BBCN24.
Sorry for a crap rant.
OK. so I’ll bunch a couple of more rants in here to make it a bit more interesting.
Rant1: New years resolutions are crap and flawwed. If you fail, you have to wait a whole year before you can make another one. It is now March and I have just recently made a resolution to get fit and turn my life in a better direction.
Rant2: Why am I not surrounded by twenty sexually-charged semi-naked ample-breasted supermodels! This is fucking not good! This situation will have to change.
If it’s true they’re not breaking stuff, that’s weird, because they have so many correspondents out there.
I only really use their website, but I find that very useful. Although as you say, it’s not a particularly “breaking news” website, but great for analysis.
Probably their extremely high standards of journalism, verification and fact checking, and attempts to avoid sensationalism slow the process down. Making them more reliable, but less cutting-edge speedy.
Well they do break stuff, but it’s always late, I think the website is great. I did not say the website was not a breaking news website. It’s the TV news I am refering to.
My rant is actually directed towards the nighttime broadcast (or early morning I should say) in which it almost seems like they have a tape, which they repeat all night.
News 24 has a reputation for being a poor second to Sky News in terms of breaking news. The BBC got a bit of a bollocking for News 24 in the recent Lambert Report.
I think this is a lot to do with it. I have been flicking between BBC News 24 and Sky News, and there is definitely a discrepancy. Sky seem to have taken the approach where they immediately report every unconfirmed story about the war (probably told to them by some guy in the pub) whereas the BBC seem to wait for confirmation. Both have their benefits, I guess. It depends on if you want to hear things first but risk later hearing “Earlier reports suggested that… but it now seems that” or if you want confirmed stuff from the start. The BBC is just as fast when quoting official or confirmed reports, however.
As I said, I find flicking between the channels gives the best picture.
The author Pete McCarthy calls it “BBC Bland”. He also refers to CNN World as “the global network that gives you all the news about American College football, whenever you need it”.
BBC News 24 has this strange compulsion about confirming stories before broadcasting.
Sky News is chock full of unconfirmed rumours and concentrates on bringing you the very best pictures of explosions. They might get in first with the facts, but you can’t tell them from the speculation until long after the fact. Hindsight is a great BS filter.
They seem to get crumbs from the table as BBC 1 & 2 attract all the heavyweight contributors and quality reportage.
And it’s just seriously under-funded, can’t compete with the Sky ?CNN market without a lot more money.
IIRC, there have been political grumblings in recent months (say the last three) about improving the service but I just can’t see how the beeb can spread it’s news and current affairs coverage any wider – I mean, it’s not like they miss much or don’t inform the public debate enough (IMHO).