Election 2010 – Battle of the BREAKING NEWS!
For those in Britain were gripped to the TV over the last few days you will have noticed an interesting battle unfold – and I’m not talking about the political party fight! No, I’m referring to the never-ending race to the ‘Breaking News’ finish line.
I found it entertaining how (as far as I see it) the 3 main broadcasting news centres battled not only to engage and keep the viewers on their channel, but the constant “We’re just about to get an important announcement” and not forgetting of course the “Oh dear, we’re sorry we couldn’t bring you any sound during that speech”. A clear indication that this battle was getting tense was the odd typo that appeared on the scrolling news bar during broadcasts (I won’t mention which broadcaster suffered the most), and making sure that scheduled programmes were changed to alternate times / dates.
Yes, I understand you’re “bringing the news to the people that matter” and all that branding-associated bull crap, but viewers want concrete news and not scaremongering or “what might happen”. This kind of news reeks of lack of solid sources and just makes news reporting look sloppy, but at the same time I also recognise the fact that news sources aren’t always reliable.
Looking back at the news coverage of these main broadcasters it was clear to me that the news wasn’t quite WHO would be PM in No.10, but more so who could get the biggest story. In my opinion they looked like they were struggling to catch up with the all the goings-on in the Labour camp. The fact that Gordon Brown wanted to resign was a foregone conclusion by Saturday night (and I remember saying this at the time to my partner), but none of the news broadcasters mentioned it. If it was for the reason to that they didn’t want to speculate then why do just this with other elements of the Election story (namely the discussions that went on behind closed doors between the Tories and Lib Dems)? Instead they chose to lead with “This surprising move by Gordon Brown”, which in turn made me scream the words ‘I told you so’ at the TV…and I’m sure others were probably doing the same thing too. It was almost like watching a movie where you know what the ending is likely to be.
I know people will side with their favourite broadcaster and say that their news was the best and most informative, but truth be told all three of them had struggled to provide concrete news (I’m referring to the ‘news before it’s news’ trend). Maybe it’s because they truly didn’t know what was going to happen, or that their sources weren’t good enough – both of which are quite plausible.
The question….is it more about who can get news first, or who can get the most ACCURATE news first?
Something to ponder….
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