News Priorities

[Mp3 Astra]

Something today really got me irritated.

Every night, I tune into the BBC 6 o'clock news because I have to know what's going on in the world. Today, ten minutes were spent on the US elections - no problem. Then there was a UK story, then there were the "stories that weren't so important but we'll give them a 10 second bit anyway", then another short section THEN, no less than 20 minutes into the programme we see that a Tornado has hit the USA, killing 48 people.

I thought I must be going mad - surely this is pretty important, no? Not even in the USA elections section was a small hint that this had happened, it's like this stuff doesn't matter - is it not appealing to the British Public?

This isn't the first time this has happened either. A couple of months ago there was a large-scale natural disaster that killed thousands of people and it wasn't even featured in the programme. I can't even find where or what it was!

Is this commonplace throughout the world, do news Corporations choose to (re)move these stories for any particular reason? I'm baffled, I truely am.

[Drew]

I'm fed up of the USA elections thing, it's not even the proper sodding election for Pete's sake.

[Garry Walker]

You know news priorities are wrong when CNN has Heath Ledgers death as its main story.

[jim mcglinchey]

Blatant plugs masquerading as news, thats what I hate.

[Dave B]

The news programmes on the mainstream channels have a dual purpose: obviously to disseminate the news itself, but also to provide viewing figures.

That's why human interest stories feature so prominently - witness how the broadcasters went loopy over the McCann case and still bleat on about Diana (pwincess of all our hearts <vomit>) 10 years on.

It it wasn't about viewing figures then the "relaunched" News At Ten (BONG!) wouldn't have led with a ten-minute feature about the Diana inquest, and the BBC News wouldn't have countered with a report from Zimbabwe (where the Beeb are supposedly banned).

Get your news from t'internet, it's far more up-to-date; although it's every bit as biased.

[gadjo_dilo]

At least these are news. Our channels with the best audience use to show about 10 min from some stupid gypsy singers/witches weddings/christenings, or how these idiots spent their holidays or from the contest Miss Piranda for gypsy "beauties".

Then one of these channels have the " famous" 17.oo news programme where we found about guys killing their family members with a knife/axe, about women in their seventies being raped, killed and robbed by their neighbours, kids abused by their (step)father + other such abominal facts. All spiced up with special reports from hospitals or cemetery.

[maxu05]

It's the same with sport here in China. Casey Stoner won the world championship in motogp, Kimi won the F1 world championship, but not a single item about it in the news, but, they dedicated a 5 minute update on NBA basketball. We are on the other side of the world for god sake, who cares about the Pistons Vs the pillocks or whatever. If it was a world championship being contested, fair enough. It's enough to make you want to go to the mall (oops, better not go there, you will get gunned down) :laugh:

[Hazell B]

Astra, I'm with you all the way on this one - in fact we were maybe watching the same news show.

On one recently there was 18 minutes of US election then about two minutes on the weather and it's human cost. Priorites, people :mark:

I care not a jot who's winning (not even yet won) the elections that only go a small way toward real elections, but I should be informed about the tornados, not least as we get the tail end of much US weather.

Next week there'll be huge sections on Diana's inquest and beggar all about real issues that matter.

[Malbec]

Whoever becomes the next US President will be affecting far more than 48 families, thus the competition to choose the next US President is quite important to convey especially following Super Tuesday when it was possible that both parties would finally decide which candidate would stand for them.

BTW on the same day 29 Egyptians died in a large car accident, why were they not reported while the deaths of 48 Americans was?

There's a general rule of thumb regarding the TV news, 1 local death = 10 national deaths = 100 international deaths. Obviously factors such as how gruesome or bizarre the deaths were or how culturally close the country they died in change things a little. I'm sure a Saudi news agency would have picked the Egyptian car crash story as being of greater import just as the BBC felt the American deaths were more newsworthy.

[allycat228]

Years a go i flew into dulles airport in Dc the day before 5 people had been killed when their small plane crashed at the airport but all the papers were showing was oj simson

[Mark]

The fact is that if the news was always who has died and how then nobody would watch it.

[BDunnell]

Whoever becomes the next US President will be affecting far more than 48 families, thus the competition to choose the next US President is quite important to convey especially following Super Tuesday when it was possible that both parties would finally decide which candidate would stand for them.

BTW on the same day 29 Egyptians died in a large car accident, why were they not reported while the deaths of 48 Americans was?

There's a general rule of thumb regarding the TV news, 1 local death = 10 national deaths = 100 international deaths. Obviously factors such as how gruesome or bizarre the deaths were or how culturally close the country they died in change things a little. I'm sure a Saudi news agency would have picked the Egyptian car crash story as being of greater import just as the BBC felt the American deaths were more newsworthy.

I agree, and this is why the news broadcasters can never please all of the people all of the time. Personally, I am more interested in reports on the US primaries than something like this tornado. Others would disagree.

[Mp3 Astra]

I don't like people trying to make deaths like this seem "not as important as the primaries". Maybe I'm just an emotional tart - but in the same country that is having more than 1/3 of the news programme dedicated to its elections that haven't even properly started yet (it's just the pre-election stuff), should therefore have some coverage of a tornado that has torn apart an area of the country.

It's more than just 48 families, its everyone who has lost of much as their lives as is possible without dying (like their relatives, their houses, their money etc). What I'm trying to say is, if the BBC are trying to report on America, why don't they actually get their priorities right, and at least feature this disaster in the same segment as the Primaries. Surely this disaster would have some effect on the primaries, no?

But who can justify not featuring a story when more than 10, 000 people have died because of a huge natural disaster?

[maxu05]

I think the news channels should be trying to persuade the government (USA) to ammend their constitution to ban all fire arms after the latest incidence over there. The trouble is, if people keep getting blown away at shopping malls and schools, the news reporters have great stories to cover. I can't believe that nearly every week you hear of another shooting over there. On the news, they reported that an average of 80 people are killed every day in the USA, and twice that number are injured due to gun related incidents, that's every day ! In Australia, we had a similar shooting incident in Tasmania, in Port Arthur. No more than a week later, the government passed a bill to stop anyone owning a gun that was not used for specific purposes, (Olympic target shooting etc, etc). Now, it is very difficult to get a gun licence. Why doesn't the USA do something like this ? Because the media thrive on these stories, and if you tow the line with the media, they will back your campain. Disaster makes cash for these people, that's why they will always give time on the news for sensationalism, it sells.

[Daniel]

I agree, and this is why the news broadcasters can never please all of the people all of the time. Personally, I am more interested in reports on the US primaries than something like this tornado. Others would disagree.
Same here. Regardless of what happens tornados will kill people. But the primaries are going to have a big impact on people's lives. I think there's a good chance of there being a woman or a black man in charge of the worlds most powerful country. Is that not the slightest bit interesting?

I don't go for emotional stories. I tend to look at the story behind it.

Poor cute little Madeleine went missing - Careless parents who paid for this carelessness with the life of their child. At the end of the day it was only 1 child and in the big scheme of things all the money that went to helping find her could have saved the lives of many children in Africa.
People's princess died in a car crash - Who cares? She was no different to anyone else, had no sense of style, if she hadn't married Charles she'd have been a nobody and the driver was drunk and caused the accident.

I could go on about how I don't care about a lot of things that air on the news. I mean really what's more important? Who is president of the US? Or some girl who went missing in Portugal because her parents were careless and left the door unlocked?

Also I don't see any natural disasters listed where 10,000+ people died in within the last year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_natural_disasters
4000+ died in this cyclone which did get coverage however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Sidr#Impact

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_natural_disasters

[Daniel]

Whoever becomes the next US President will be affecting far more than 48 families, thus the competition to choose the next US President is quite important to convey especially following Super Tuesday when it was possible that both parties would finally decide which candidate would stand for them.

BTW on the same day 29 Egyptians died in a large car accident, why were they not reported while the deaths of 48 Americans was?

There's a general rule of thumb regarding the TV news, 1 local death = 10 national deaths = 100 international deaths. Obviously factors such as how gruesome or bizarre the deaths were or how culturally close the country they died in change things a little. I'm sure a Saudi news agency would have picked the Egyptian car crash story as being of greater import just as the BBC felt the American deaths were more newsworthy.
It's also the fact that there are probably more people from the US here in the UK watching the news than there are Egyptians here watching the news.

[Hazell B]

I think there's a good chance of there being a woman or a black man in charge of the worlds most powerful country. Is that not the slightest bit interesting?



Nobody's said it's not interesting and shouldn't be reported on, though. Of course there's more than the 'slightest bit' of interest - although I see no huge thread on here to prove mass interest ;)

It's more that 18 minutes of a 26 minute broadcast was US election garble from about twenty hours ago, while everything else got a scant few seconds or no mention at all.

As for the first woman or black man landing the big task - so what? Isn't it more interesting to hear what they think, not what they are? UK news stations are making far too much noise about colour and sex, yet leaps up and down in indignation about race and sex being an issue elsewhere :mark:

[Daniel]

Nobody's said it's not interesting and shouldn't be reported on, though. Of course there's more than the 'slightest bit' of interest - although I see no huge thread on here to prove mass interest ;)

It's more that 18 minutes of a 26 minute broadcast was US election garble from about twenty hours ago, while everything else got a scant few seconds or no mention at all.

As for the first woman or black man landing the big task - so what? Isn't it more interesting to hear what they think, not what they are? UK news stations are making far too much noise about colour and sex, yet leaps up and down in indignation about race and sex being an issue elsewhere :mark:
I'm not saying that it's not interesting to hear what they say. I'm just saying that we've had Dubya the fool in for a while now and there's going to be change and it will hopefully change things for the better. This is big news for people. Dubya's pushing the world towards another cold war with Russia and he's made himself very popular with the Arab world too. You might think this is not important for people over here in blightly but we seem to catch the fallout from the USA's actions so who is in charge there makes a big difference to us.

To be perfectly honest how many hundreds or thousands of people die in Africa of starvation each day and that doesn't get reported most of the time. Death happens. Meh.....

If I want to watch localish news I watch BBC1 Wales and the news on there. If I want to watch world news I watch BBC News 24. You do have a choice :)

[Malbec]

I think the news channels should be trying to persuade the government (USA) to ammend their constitution to ban all fire arms after the latest incidence over there. The trouble is, if people keep getting blown away at shopping malls and schools, the news reporters have great stories to cover.

I disagree completely. The media should be a lens through which the public can see major world events with as little distortion as possible. The political views of the news agency should not discolour either the choice of news programme or the manner in which it is reported.

Obviously in the real world what I'm suggesting is unacheivable but it isn't a bad target. It is up to the public to decide whether what they are seeing on the news is something worth taking action over (like lobbying politicians over guns) or not.

[Malbec]

If I want to watch localish news I watch BBC1 Wales and the news on there. If I want to watch world news I watch BBC News 24. You do have a choice :)

Precisely.

[Erki]

Return of investment. News channels are after all businesses. They're after profit. If they can get their news about the US elections and what not for cheap dosh, and there's a chance that many people will watch that stuff - they'll go for it.

And I couldn't care less about the US primaries either - I'm waiting for the tertiaries!! :bounce:

[Hazell B]

You might think this is not important for people over here in blightly but we seem to catch the fallout from the USA's actions so who is in charge there makes a big difference to us.


If I want to watch localish news I watch BBC1 Wales and the news on there. If I want to watch world news I watch BBC News 24. You do have a choice :)


I am interested, as I've already said, but not to the point that it should be three quarters of an entire news bulletin. Frankly being told which designer made Clinton's outfit was stretching the story beyond anyone's interest! As for choices, I have News 24 (or BBC's regular evening and night bulletins) and ITV - no Wales, no US, no nothing special. Beggar all choice to be fair, as they were all giving it far too much weight over other stories.

Anyway, the general public's lack of interest in every minute detail of the US elections appears to have been noted by the news stations now. They're getting the mentions they deserve and no more for the past few days.