OT: Look North

[Bill Wright]

Look North letdown

Friday was the biggest day for news our region has seen for some time, thanks to Thursday?s extraordinary weather. The Yorkshire coast had the worst storm surge for sixty years, with Whitby and Scarborough inundated. In Leeds the high winds lifted a woman off her feet and put her in hospital. In Auckley the roof was blown off Hayfield School. There were countless power cuts (we were off for five hours here in Braithwell), a man on a mobility scooter was killed by a falling tree, a large building collapsed in Hull, there were floods all over the place, and transport links were badly disrupted. I put the BBC?s ?Look North? on expecting to see a full roundup of the day?s local news, but to my astonishment the programme devoted almost fifteen of its 27 minutes to Nelson Mandela, with the Yorkshire news, sport, and weather squeezed into the remaining twelve minutes. This was a crucial day for regional news. Local stories were of immediate interest and importance to so many of us. It was the sort of day when local TV news should come into its own; yet on that day ?Look North? failed lamentably to live up to its mission statement: to bring us ?the latest news from around Yorkshire?. The BBC national news covered Mr Mandela?s death at great length and in more than adequate detail. We didn?t want or need yet more of it from ?Look North?, even with the flimsy pretext that it was ?the Yorkshire Mandela story?. Luckily I?d recorded ?Calendar? on ITV, and was pleased to see a good comprehensive set of reports about the storm?s aftermath, with a bit of other news as well, and with only three minutes out of 29 devoted to Mr Mandela. I?ve thought for some time now that Look North suffers from unbalanced editorial judgement, but this edition, with its total overkill on the Mandela story at the expense of vital local information, was the limit. I shan?t bother with the programme anymore. My ?series link? has been deleted.

Bill

[Peter Duncanson]

That is totally bizarre.

[Dave Liquorice]

I hope you are also going to write (on paper, emails can be forgotten/ignored, bits of paper have a physical precense that is harder to foget/ignore) to Look North expressing your concern over their editorial values. As you say THE regional story was the weather/floods not the expected death of some 95 year old thousands of miles away that had already been done to, er, death on the national news.

[Bill Wright]

I've emailed the BBC's complaints dept. It's a waste of time though. And it would be a total waste of time emailing or writing to Look North. It would be like the people who used to take the phone number off my van and then ring up the management to complain about the operative.

I'm in despair about the Beeb.

Bill

[harryagain]

Mandella was nothing but a terrorist too.

[Peter Crosland]

To be fair it is not just the BEEB. The entire media circus has been in a total frenzy about the matter. However great he may, or may not, have been his long expected death did not justify the almost total exclusion of of other news.

[polygonum]

Agreed.

The news media totally confuse importance, significance, etc., with volume of coverage. The actual news about the death itself could have been done within a minute. Quite possibly everyone really wanted to know about it - I certainly wanted to be aware.

To do as the BBC did and swamp the news, then have additional programs as well, is unwarranted.

[Bob Martin]

I can remember when the BBC devoted almost the entire national news slot to the strike of BBC journalists.

[Woody]

Its because we live in a world of celebrity where what such do is broadcast and exposed to the detriment of all other real news.

I'm sorry to say but I believe Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter have a lot to answer for.

[polygonum]

This is certainly not the first time their editorial balance has been highly questionable. I most certainly have complained in the past.

The fact that quite a bit of the coverage was going to various people so they could make their public comments about the deceased added virtually nothing to out understanding.

[Tony Bryer]

The Mail, in pursuance of its anti-BBC agenda, carried a story about the BBC's over-coverage of NM's death at a time of severe UK weather issues. In my comment to the story I pointed out that in the top third of their home page they had three weather stories and seven NM ones. Here a number of our TV programmes were replaced by NM stories.

[Ian Jackson]

Somehow, I couldn't stop myself recalling the opening song and scenes in 'Evita'.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , harryagain writes

'Was' is the important word. As they say, 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. Fortunately, once apartheid was abandoned, Mandella advocated peace and reconciliation. But now he's gone, how long this survives is anyone's guess.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nah: it all started with hollywood and the radio. 'nationally known' faces and voices.

[DerbyBorn]

I think that the "creative types" in the regions tend to compete to give their spin on such International stories. I absolutely agree with Bill that regional news programmes should not replicate international or national stories unless their is a very direct connection. It isn't being dis-respectful - it is about retaining the correct focus.

[Tony Bryer]

One of his noteworth accomplishments - for an African head of state

- was to leave office voluntarily. The current SA government's silence on atrocities in Zimbabwe is shameful though; if Zimabweans had been treated by a white government they would have had plenty to say. Racism works in more than one direction.

[Brian Gaff]

Could of course been their reporters were simply not out there and caught on the hop. I've noticed this with the bbc of late. Its as if in the UK they only have reporters on Government things, but not many in the regions.

Brian

[Alan Whit]

I disagree. For example, the helicopter crash in Glasgow was covered by a reporter from BBC Scotland, another from BBC1 news and another from BBC News. Bearing in mind that two of those three would be claiming overnight expenses, it is profligate.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Alan White writes

Don't forget the cameramen and the sound recordists.

[nemo]

But his spelling and grammar were far better than yours.