One for Newswatch?

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

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I shall be tuning in with some interest to Saturday's edition of Newswatch to see if tonight's bulletin gets a mention.

The item regarding the 'act of cannibalism' in Wales in which two people were left dead and two families left bereft was followed immediately by the item on a newly-released recording of phone call between Reagan and Thatcher which closes, to the apparent amusement of the reporter and presenter, with him telling her to "Go eat them alive!"

Poor stuff from the BBC.
 
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Why?

They're both news items. Would you rather they were airbrushed from the record in order to possibly appease two families. I think you're just being a tad silly to be honest. If you want to hold a vigil though until Saturday to see if anyone else notices, then good luck to you, I won't be doing, but then I'm not necessarily sure news reporting needs to be wrapped up with such anodyne sensitivities. Bad things happen in the world, get used to it

I'd be have been more interested to get hold of Bernhard Ingham who for decades had been telling us how Thatcher flew into a rage and tore a strip of Reagan. Quite the opposite appears to be the case. She seems to have gone pretty meek as a mouse and agreed with everything Reagan did.
 
Warbler said:
Why?

They're both news items.
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You miss the point.
The issue, as rightly noted by the O.P., is the lack of empathy and rapport for the bereaved family in Wales evidenced by the distasteful juxtaposition of the two news items and, to add insult, the repugnant mirth of the presenter with the "punchline" -- Go Eat Them Alive.
 
icebreaker said:
You miss the point.
The issue, as rightly noted by the O.P., is the lack of empathy and rapport for the bereaved family in Wales evidenced by the distasteful juxtaposition of the two news items and, to add insult, the repugnant mirth of the presenter with the "punchline" -- Go Eat Them Alive.
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Oh, and I think I'm right in saying Ms Bruce full-stopped the report by saying with a smile, "And I'm sure she did."

I don't think the BBC actually reported the nature extent of the dead girl's injuries but I can't help thinking Ms Bruce couldn't have read the reports elsewhere.
 
icebreaker said:
You miss the point.
The issue, as rightly noted by the O.P., is the lack of empathy and rapport for the bereaved family in Wales evidenced by the distasteful juxtaposition of the two news items and, to add insult, the repugnant mirth of the presenter with the "punchline" -- Go Eat Them Alive.
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Since when has our national news broadcaster been beholden to only report to us what doesn't offend two families? The news is there to inform and not be manipulated based on hypothetic emotional extrapolation of what someone who might or might not be watching, might or might not feel.

Throughout the News of the World trial (to use just one example) the BBC in common with all sorts of news broadcast organisation routinely cut to archive picture of Milly Dowler. They didn't stop then and think to themselves whether it was relevant or insensitive to the Dowler's to suddenly flash screen an image of their dead daughter doing the ironing or playing the saxophone again

The content of that conversation has been speculated about before, and especially since conservatives have occasionally told the story that Thatcher tore into Reagan. Clear she didn't. The way the conversation signs off is of course relevant in terms of how they parted and closed the issue. People have a right to know that, and shouldn;t be denied that right to knowledge just because of a possible sensitivity in South Wales.

Question of priorities. This isn't John Craven's Newsround. We don't live in a sanatised world where one persons sensitivities should determine what we are or aren't told
 
Warbler said:
This isn't John Craven's Newsround. We don't live in a sanatised world where one persons sensitivities should determine what we are or aren't told
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Perhaps not, but there is a long-upheld convention in journalism not to deliberately offend the recently bereaved with crass black-humour relating to the death of a loved one.
 
I think you're going to struggle to try and sustain the argument that journalism is some kind of paragon of moral virtuosity. What do you think Leveson was about?

Periodically the example of Thatcher ripping into Reagan was given as an answer to the allegation that she was an American poodle/ aircraft carrier. The contents of this tape (which have taken years to extract from the Reagan library as a FOI request) clearly give a lie to that account. How they sign off is an important piece of evidence towards concluding how that conversation went.

Would prefer this account then...

"The conversation finished on an upbeat note, with Reagan offering some personal encouragement to the Prime Minister. The BBC however has taken the decision to with hold this information from you the British public so that you might make your own mind up, in case it offends a family in South Wales who might be watching us. Just guess or look it up on google if you're that bothered, but in the name of freedom of speech, we, your state news broadcaster won't broadcast it"

Freedom of speech is a much stronger and more cherished tradition in journalism incidentally than any notion of offending minorities, and given that we're talking about 2 families here, we really are in serious numerical minority territory
 
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Nah Nah, no-one suggesting that Beeb withold the item on the Reagan/Thatcher telephone dialogue. It is not the substance of the report that is at debate here -- but the style of reporting it. The smirking, the seque-ing of both reports, then the obvious amusement of the presenter with Go Eat Them Alive, .
But, lookit, you and I have differing sensibilities, obviously. Lets leave it at that and agree to disagree.
 
I saw this and rather than get all Mr Angry about it just beamed and harrumphed at its cringeworthiness

Of course the Producer, Director, Best Boy Grip and La Bruce should have noticed the irony but the fact that they didn't just makes it all the more amusing

I won't be writing to my MP, nor watchi Points Of View...

...though I might, secretly, as I could do with another harrumph
 
icebreaker said:
Nah Nah, no-one suggesting that Beeb withold the item on the Reagan/Thatcher telephone dialogue.
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Simmo subsequently has, (admittedly he hadn't done when you posted that no one had) but it was only a matter of time before someone suggested it. I was just waiting for them to do so without necessarily knowing who it would be

Both stories are newsworthy, but neither would be headline material outside of the initial breaking of the murder (unless of course the cannibal was an asylum seeker living on benefits who preyed on a pretty little Welsh child) in which case it would run prominently for about a week. So the problem the BBC then have is elevating one in the running order to get a respectful distance, or perhaps slotting a good news story like 'tabby the cat gets rescued from up a tree' (standard regional news fodder) to break it. Basically you're then slotting stories for the wrong reason

If they'd run something like ...

"and coming up, the latest on the Welsh cannibal, and, Reagan tells Thatcher to go eat them alive" then I think you'd have a case. But they didn't

It's a non-issue
 
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Drone said:
I saw this and rather than get all Mr Angry about it just beamed and harrumphed at its cringeworthiness

Of course the Producer, Director, Best Boy Grip and La Bruce should have noticed the irony but the fact that they didn't just makes it all the more amusing
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A commendably honest answer I suspect Drone. Equally I suspect you're not alone. Some people and indeed society generally, will often use a cloak of feigned indignation in the hope getting some camouflage to acheive the same result of drawing something to the attention of a wider audience when perhaps they know they can't do so any other way.
 
The lack of any real emotion projected through our news where there is a serious tragedy is a sign of the times.

Analyse the consequences, the politics, the motive, but not the feeling that negative news has on us whilst digesting it!

I suppose this has to be thinking or we'd all be more depressed than we perhaps already were.

After all, there are official ceremonial events to express emotion these days, usually taken over by the Royals, news output is obviously not about that?
 
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Surprised that anyone would go to the trouble of starting a thread about something so trivial.. but then I do seem to have gone to the trouble to reply to it :lol:
 
Warbler said:
Both stories are newsworthy, but neither would be headline material outside of the initial breaking of the murder
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Their article on the website indicates that the information was released in October. It still strikes me as strange that they couldn't hold off a couple of days in light of subsequent events.

(Wolf, on the other hand, is just strange)
 
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My understanding is that the archive was released through a protracted FOI with the Reagan library. Initially there'd been a denial that Reagan had 'done a Nixon' and taped his telephones, tricky Dickie was felt to be the last Pres that did this. Clearly Ronald MacDonald did as well. Once the archive was released though people had to take it turns to some extent (I think it was released to an east coast newspaper?) in any event, the onus was then on researchers to wade their way through it looking for relevant bits
 
Wolf said:
Surprised that anyone would go to the trouble of starting a thread about something so trivial.. but then I do seem to have gone to the trouble to reply to it :lol:
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If someone so remote to both situations as I am noticed it and was taken aback by it, I can only imagine what the families involved, especially the parents of the poor girl, went through when they heard it.

Could that be any more trivial than a thread entitled "This and That"? :)
 
DO, I doubt they even noticed.

'This and That' is just exactly what it says on the tin.
 
So, Wolf, if your daughter had just been eaten alive by a mentally ill person - likened in the media to Hannibal Lecter - and someone cracked a joke that another person should go and eat someone alive you wouldn't be grossly offended?

That would be like saying to Michael Schumaker: so you fancy going skiing, Mikey? Go knock yourself out.

Very funny. I hope you are blessed enough never to undergo such tragedy.
 
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