This is a letter to the Daily Express but is really meant to express my irritation over how much the BBC seems to have become an extension of Government propaganda. 19/8/14
It is puzzling as to how the BBC deems some items Newsworthy.
The announcement that a Government Minister is choosing which, of three companies, he will award a train franchise to is only newsworthy, if the companies are named and, then, only if someone has an objection to one of those names and, then, only if the Minister is likely to take any notice of that objector. Otherwise it is dead air and not newsworthy.
An Announcement that a local Council has found that a significant number of the schoolchildren, in its catchment area, are obese is only Newsworthy to the extent that they have, in a time of cutting budgets, collated this information.
News is supposed to be informing people about events that have occurred recently and which may be of interest to them.
When did it become a means of allowing bureaucrats to try to justify the tax money being extracted from the listener (or viewer, if the newsreader is on TV and worth lifting one’s eyes from a hastily munched piece of toast)?
An accident on your route into work is News,
The cause of the sirens that woke you, last night, is News.
The farther from your home, the more serious an incident must be, to justify iy being called News
Somebody signing a mundane legal document in Whitehall is not something of interest to a national Newspaper and a local Council Officer preparing a document for the next Council meeting is not a News item to excite a the local paper, So why does such dross fascinate the BBC?
Perhaps there should be a special post-News section, entitled “public announcements of things in which you have no interest whatsoever, so feel free to dash off and catch the bus for work”.
An Evening version could include “changes in the Law and how they will affect you”.
E.g. there is now a 20mph speed limit on streets on housing estates and if there’s ever enough police cars available to administer it, that white van man who nearly hit you yesterday stands a better chance of winning the National Lottery than of being fined £50, or, more likely, being given a serious verbal warning.
Although there is a chance that Mrs Curtain-Twitcher, will make a complaint against you, which will not be substantiated but will necessitate some PCSO knocking on your door to try and lecture you about the sincere need for such legislation
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