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ploop tv - The BBC, Iraq and a jolly logo.  We couldn’t make this up even at ploop towers!

First off - an admission - I used to work for the BBC.  I say that because what I saw on the BBC Ten O-Clock news last night made me both laugh out loud and hawk bile. Let me take you back:

1. Thousands have died in Iraq.  The world is split on whether it’s a just war.  The lives of the Iraqi people is utterly deplorable - I cannot imagine the terror of walking down the street wondering if I’ll make it home alive.  Iraq is a mess.

2. Time is a construct vital to order.  Anniversaries are simply an excuse to remember.  If I was knocked over by a mule 14 days ago does the fact that 14 days is neatly a fortnight make today any more useful to me?  No.  Anniversary stories are cheap journalism.  I remember Ceri Thomas (now Today Editor) asking all the journalists in an editorial meeting why we were covering the 5th anniversary of the start of the war in Kosovo.  Our answer that it was 5 years etc was met with derision, “it’s no more a story today than it was three days ago.  If there’s a story there run it but don’t use an anniversary as an excuse”

1+2 = BBC News at Ten.

No such journalistic integrity on the ten O-clock news though.  The flagship news programme had a special ‘Iraq Four years on” logo made up and sent out Huw Edwards to cover Iraq live from Iraq (doing the same there but with Iraq in the background).  What a patronising, patently annoying waste of time.  The are compelling news stories coming out of Iraq every single day but you get the feeling the BBC New at Ten programme held back on it’s coverage to spend time making a graphic.  It was a really snazzy IRAQ with a 4 blended in with the q on the end of Iraq.  Iraqis dying every day.  Soldiers families losing their fathers.  Disease, starvation and terror synthesised into a logo saying IRAQ4.  That’s the most important thing about Iraq to the BBC - it’s 4 year on so that’s the story.  I wonder how many Iraqis give a flying turd for this kind of line in the sand journalism?  It’s lazy.  Very lazy.

  TechTags Plugin [ BBC | Iraq | ploop tv ]

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