Nought out of ten for the News at Ten
The Skimmer 12:00pm
Amazingly bad news judgement by the BBC1 News at Ten last night when it devoted only 10 seconds -- and a mere voiceover at that -- to the latest development in the shambles that is Peter Hain's funding arrangements (aka Labour's dodgy donations -- the sideshow). I'm inclined to believe this was cock up rather than the usual BBC leftie bias, though it would be interesting to know on what basis they downgraded the story to near oblivion. Newscaster Huw Edwards, who likes robust journalism, must have been furious. BBC2's Newsnight showed far better judgement by going to town with it as the lead story and at last giving proper coverage to the crisis surrounding Labour's Scottish Leader, Wendy Alexander, who's job as they say north of the border is now "hingin by a shoogly peg" (ask F. Nelson for a translation). But Newsnight is watched by less than a million, the News by almost 6m. What were they thinking?
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Tiberius
December 4th, 2007 12:49pm Report this commentHow is the 10 secs a cock-up? Are you saying the editorial team meant to show more but "got distracted"?
David
December 4th, 2007 1:40pm Report this commentWhat were they thinking? Presumably whatever it is that leads them to describe this as 'Labour breaking the rules' as opposed to what it is, Labour breaking the law. Only Conservatives break the law in BBC land, obviously.
dearieme
December 4th, 2007 2:13pm Report this commentThe usual combination of being a bunch of lefties and Huttonised cowards, surely.
mitch
December 4th, 2007 2:14pm Report this commentI'm inclined to believe it was most definitely deliberate. The BBC know this is serious and are pulling their punches accordingly.
Talia
December 4th, 2007 3:10pm Report this commentI really don't understand how you can conclude this was a mistake by the BBC. And I always thought Huw belonged to the air-steward style of journalism (now, we'll be getting the headlines for you in a moment) rather than any robust discipline.
David Lindsay
December 4th, 2007 4:22pm Report this commentThere are now so many of these things that it hardly counts as news any more.
Snodgrass
December 4th, 2007 5:38pm Report this commentOne of Hain's close allies is Phil Woolas MP. Woolas used to be a producer for Newsnight. Could Mr Woolas have been deployed to ensure damage limitation?
Self-hating pedant
December 4th, 2007 6:44pm Report this commentI hate pedants, but isn't it the Ten O'Clock News?
TGF UKIP
December 4th, 2007 7:50pm Report this comment"Newscaster Huw Edwards, who likes robust journalism"!!!? Maybe, but only so long as it is robustly pro left journalism. Boyho Huw is about as politically neutral as Boyho Kinnock.
Another self-hating pedant
January 8th, 2008 5:13pm Report this comment"...the crisis surrounding Labour's Scottish Leader, Wendy Alexander, who's job.." Surely "whose job"?
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