The 24 hour news channels fail to cover themselves in glory at this kind of event.  They are after information for the sake of being watched and being interesting.  If they can't be exclusive, then they must deny the exclusivity of the other channels.  They keep referring to these horrific events as a "story" - "this has been a long 'story' for the peopel of Rothbury" said one news anchor last night.  There is greed to be near to the "story" - these events are happening "only 100m behind me"; "we have been moved further back by the police".  This conversion of crisis "news product" is doubly troubling.  It belittles human pain, and it is guilty of hypocrisy.  It masks its true intentions in the false cloak of urgent concern and the public's "right to know".

The primary "news product" is conflict.  Peace is a terrible thing because it is dull.  Thus, one news reporter at 6.30am this morning said "the question that is being asked around Rothbury this morning is 'Why did it take so long for the police to find Raoul Moat?'".  You want to question this in so many ways.  Firstly, a mere four hours after Raoul Moat's final act of annihiliation, during which most of the people of Rothbury would have been in their beds, did this reporter really have the ability in four hours to crystallise the complex and diverse thoughts of an entire village, into "the question that is being asked".  One suspects that this is code for "the question that we journalists are going to ask to get more mileage out of this 'story' is..."

And the other problem with this is "now we're making this about police incompetence" is that the quotes from actual residents don't go in this direction.  Here's some from the Guardian:

He [one resident] said: "The police have been excellent, they've kept us really informed throughout and have been particularly friendly. You'd have thought Moat would have moved on, but as it happens he was right on our doorstep. Our home was one of the closest to where he was hiding.

"You imagine he might be in our garden, which he basically was, and that makes you think that, now it's ended, we're just very grateful for the expertise of the police."

With the failures of tradition broadcasting we must be doubly grateful for new media; for the phone-ins, blogs and message boards which provide a more balanced, reflective, informed and less hysterical account of current affairs.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment