I feel impelled to return to the thorny subject of the BBC coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee for which they have received plenty of criticism. The question is was it warranted or not?
The problem with having hundreds of television channels and 24 hour coverage is that events get proverbally "done to death" and I felt that there was, if possible, just too much coverage. So that means that there were hours and hours of footage to put together.
So whilst newspapers were analysing the coverage, the Beeb was having to deal with torrential rain with all its problems and also keeping going for hour after hour after hour.
So we had Paloma Faith with her Royal sick bag and Tess Daley being "knighted" for her services to reporting in the wet. This is all part of our vacuous society. The problem is probably an age one. Older people will remember the days of the Dimblebys, Raymond Baxter et al when those broadcasting were 1/ consummate professionals and 2/ Historians in their own right.
The problem in today's X Factor disposable society is the BBC wants to be seen as a broadcasting company of the people. So we have reporters/presenters amongst the crowd making crass comments and asking stupid questions and pretending everything is absolutely wonderful. This hit a low when one young man made it known that he wanted to sing the National Anthem live on television and then proceeded to murder God Save the Queen in a totally tuneless fashion to which the presenter said "That was amazing." Amazing yes but not in the way meant.
My biggest problem came in the shape of the wheeled in celebrities who all seemed to be asked the same question: "What do you think of the jubilee?" to which their response to a man and woman was "it's absolutely awesome, fantastic, incredible, wonderful, marvellous and stunning."
There was a feeling that when Emma Bunton, who is basically famous for being Emma Bunton and little else, added amongst the awesomes, marvellouses and fantastics that she thought the BBC coverage had been amazing as well as though she had been primed to try and address the complaints.
At times it did become puerile but one has to question whether the pompous styles of the Dimblebys et al are what are needed in coverage today. Our world has been dumbed down. Whether this is a good thing is another matter but it is a fact. Presenters are no longer employed for their knowledge of a subject but because they look good..... nuff said.
The problem with having hundreds of television channels and 24 hour coverage is that events get proverbally "done to death" and I felt that there was, if possible, just too much coverage. So that means that there were hours and hours of footage to put together.
So whilst newspapers were analysing the coverage, the Beeb was having to deal with torrential rain with all its problems and also keeping going for hour after hour after hour.
So we had Paloma Faith with her Royal sick bag and Tess Daley being "knighted" for her services to reporting in the wet. This is all part of our vacuous society. The problem is probably an age one. Older people will remember the days of the Dimblebys, Raymond Baxter et al when those broadcasting were 1/ consummate professionals and 2/ Historians in their own right.
The problem in today's X Factor disposable society is the BBC wants to be seen as a broadcasting company of the people. So we have reporters/presenters amongst the crowd making crass comments and asking stupid questions and pretending everything is absolutely wonderful. This hit a low when one young man made it known that he wanted to sing the National Anthem live on television and then proceeded to murder God Save the Queen in a totally tuneless fashion to which the presenter said "That was amazing." Amazing yes but not in the way meant.
My biggest problem came in the shape of the wheeled in celebrities who all seemed to be asked the same question: "What do you think of the jubilee?" to which their response to a man and woman was "it's absolutely awesome, fantastic, incredible, wonderful, marvellous and stunning."
There was a feeling that when Emma Bunton, who is basically famous for being Emma Bunton and little else, added amongst the awesomes, marvellouses and fantastics that she thought the BBC coverage had been amazing as well as though she had been primed to try and address the complaints.
At times it did become puerile but one has to question whether the pompous styles of the Dimblebys et al are what are needed in coverage today. Our world has been dumbed down. Whether this is a good thing is another matter but it is a fact. Presenters are no longer employed for their knowledge of a subject but because they look good..... nuff said.
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