Apparently the criteria for BBC newscasters has become the number of words they can cram into a minute plus the number of totally pointless remarks they can make at the same time. This would not sit well with Lord Reith (1889-1971), founder of the BBC. It was a different age, of course. Lord Reith’s impact on the BBC was lasting. He built it to be the best communications channel the world has ever seen and heard. Through the years the BBC was reliable information for everyone. Even enemies listened to the News at Nine when families gathered round the squeaky wireless set to hear what was happening to their loved ones across the sea. The King’s or Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day was a sacred event, timed to coincide with the end of as good a lunch as was available. The BBC was a substantial part of every upbringing.
All media go through changes. The pace of change has quickened nearly to the point of self-destruction. Rothschild used speed to make his fortune with homing pigeons. Now it is email, Reuters, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikToc and so many other media sources that content has given way to confusion. AI is exacerbating this.
In the process we are losing the beauty of language, the stimulus of creative thought and the joy of appreciation. We amplify it to snatch the message not to hear the sonorous, rounded Welsh tones of a modern Richard Burton, not the crystal clarity of Chloe Chua’s violin, not the agonising depth of Oscar Wilde’s cry for joy. We have forgotten how to listen to silence. We dread sleeplessness instead of lapping up and loving the still, small hours of the morning. We think tears are lost control rather than truest love.
These are sad losses for humanity. Excess is how we try to replace them. Excess noise, excess speed, excess volume, excess swearing, excess eating, excess almost anything you care to think of. In the BBC’s World Service, it is excess verbiage. Top correspondents from around the globe are told to hurry up because “we only have nineteen seconds left”. To what? End of the world? Armageddon? The next excess? Breakfast? Or they are asked to expand on a perfectly good and adequate report already delivered. Not excessive enough, you see.
Then the ultimate insult. They are thanked for being “on the show”.
As evening approaches in Singapore the BBC world newscaster announces “three hours of fast-moving news and views “. Not true. What we get is fifteen minutes of excruciating, violent news repeated twelve times. We should have a channel called LATEST for a quick update on who is killing who and where. And another channel called GREATEST for achievements of the best help to humanity. You could always have a quick fix of Latest if that is your penchant.
You don’t get to ninety-two without appreciating that time is of the essence. Cost control in the media is as important as in any business. And so is the end product. Marshall McLuhan recognised this when, in 1964, he wrote ‘the medium is the message’. It is not only what you say but how you say it that matters. Context validates or vandalises content.
Lord Reith took this somewhat to the extreme when he insisted that newscasters wear dinner jackets with black ties even though they weren’t visible. Television had yet to be invented. We laugh at such pedantry today but it set the scene for the greatest media organisation the world has yet seen.
Come back Aunty BBC It’s About Time you did.
We miss you.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Please write your own version to the news media. Copy to Ruppert Murdoch, perhaps.
08 October 2024
