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Saturday 26 January 2013

"I heard the news today......"

This is a mini rant!

Why do reputable & reasonably reliable TV news channels think we have the attention span of a gnat & the memory of a chicken? Am I the only one to notice the boring & unecessary repetition of the same information? The anchor will deliver the outline of whatever the news story is & then hand over to the link correspondent who repeats precisely the same information again, suitably embellished if they know anything further, which all to often they don't. Often the correspondent simply repeats the same facts, especially if it's breaking news.

I find this patronising & completely unecessary. Added to that it must be a huge waste of money. In many cases I question whether we really need to have a correspondent at the scene at all. Plus there must be a team of people supporting the front wo/man. Where a correspondent has expertise & / or relevant additional information of course they do put flesh on the bones of a story.

I also find the seemingly universal speculation around a breaking story a complete waste of time. People are asked their opinion about what might happen when they aren't even sure what has happened. What is the value of a personal opinion in this situation. Lot's of things might happen as a result of an incident, but until there is some indication that it's likely, speculation is utterly pointless.

I & presumably lots of other people want to be informed about the news - accurately. I am capable of retaining more than one fact at a time & making my own judgements. I would like to be treated as an intelligent adult by the media. If I wanted tosh I'd read the Daily Mail or some other rabble rousing newspaper.

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