I genuinely don't see the point of the BBC anymore.
For every radio station, there is an individual newsroom,
for each of those newsrooms there is a subset of reporters, and for each of
those newsrooms, there is a different slant on the same stories. The important
point being that they are the same stories, the narrative being shaped is the
same but clearly at different demographic points.
It is social engineering, not news. Because news is at its
core facts about the world and those facts don't change. Therefore re-shaping
the way the facts are presented has nothing to do with the facts themselves and
everything to do with shaping opinion across as broad a sweep of the entire population as possible.
Underlying this is the cost to us, to replicate the same
main news service six or seven (probably more) times (never mind the news
channel itself, and then all the regional programmes). I've done the experiment
in the mornings, and programed in the four primary radio stations and then
flicked through the news, the variation in the facts is minimal, just the presentation
changes.
So one simple change: A single radio newscast fed to all
stations at the same time would save hundreds of thousands if not millions of
pounds. The excuse that they will lose the engagement of the younger generation
if they make news too highbrow is bogus. When we were kids the news was the
news, there was one flavour. And likewise, the argument that if the news is
made too lightweight they will lose engagement from the older generation is
equally spurious, and at all points in between depending on the station.
You only have to flick to Al Jazeera at 10pm, to realise the narrow band of news you are being fed. The BBC is rotten to the core and no matter how much it tries to self-flagellate itself in the wake of the latest scandal to try and make it appear like it's going to change, it simply won't, it's just more smoke and mirrors. There will be a noisy kerfuffle for a bit, some talking heads will vomit platitudes, time will pass, people will forget, BAU. It's the same pattern time and again.
