Friday 24 April 2015

Radio 4 and 'Today'


I know how he feels!
This morning the Radio 4 programme 'Today' made me feel quite bilious!  This is supposedly the main 'hard news' show of the day, beginning at six in the morning and finishing at nine when everyone is supposedly at work somewhere in England.  Note it is supposedly only England as the rest have their own versions of early morning news.  In theory the main news will be offered, discussed, politicians called to explain, foreign news explained, home news made clear.  All well and good, when it works and the presenters allow folks to speak and answer the question!  The anti-Scots pro liberal bias is well noted but recently they have begun to turn the programme into one of those TV versions of early morning news, the ones where almost no news at all can be seen and pop/film/authors/celebs fill the time dressing badly and talking about themselves.
Today 'Today' gave us what appeared to be hours of drivel re a soap opera being broadcast at the weekend.  The sound of James Naughtie, a man who sold out Scotland during the referendum to keep his many slots in Radio 4 and Radio 3, indulged himself slavering over an actress from this upcoming show.  'Poldark' is the name, a remake of a programme form the distant past.  the usual script, handsome men, pretty girls, clothes off and in the background an explosion, a bad man/old man/grumpy woman etc and nothing but vacuous bile all the way through.  You saw it when it was the Tudors/Victorians/shop owners/oil magnates etc and will be seeing the same again soon.  
Why was this dross on a news show?
Not long ago a man wrote a 'book' on Twitter for them, then we had poetry and on and on and on with things that have little to do with news.  If only we had a proper news service, better journalists instead of BBC clones and moved away from celebrity culture on news shows we might get more people listening.

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7 comments:

Lee said...

The news bulletins get more distressing each day, full distressing idiotic misbehaviour by idiots. There are far too many idiots in this world today it's become idiotic!

the fly in the web said...

But giving us news would not please our masters....

carol in cairns said...

I was just thinking something similar yesterday about the news when I heard a story on the news about someone's opinion about the Rugby League ~ opinion is not news. In fact I don't even think sport is newsworthy. Let the sports report be called something else I say.

Lady Di Tn said...

Lee took the words right out of me mouth. Peace

Adullamite said...

Lee, Are you implying there are idiots around?

Fly, A true observation.

Carol, You have a point, 'opinion' is often not worthy news. However Football must be reported, that is not just news it is iMPORTANT!

Lady, It is not a good idea to take words out of Lees mouth I fear.

Jenny Woolf said...

I heard something or other like this and wondered if it was really "Today" - I switched off though without listening to the end to see what it was. Now I know!

Adullamite said...

Jenny, It is the BBC way now to force feed us things in every channel. It was on 5Live I believe, the 'Profile' programme covered the main star and trailed constantly. Most annoying I find.