More Alan Partridge than Anna Ford.
There’s two things I really dislike in TV news coverage. The first is simple - scaremongering. The necessity to bring drama instead of just facts to broadcast news has become more and more in recent years, hitting the point where soon they will be simply telling everyone to stay indoors all day and never come out. (See Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe for a great commentary on this issue).
The second issue is with local news and, ironically enough, its enthusiasm to jump on whatever bandwagon is passing. Recently, for example, our regional news Look East has started covering Formula One, praising Jenson Button constantly (mainly because actual local boy Lewis Hamilton isn’t fairing quite so well this year), purely on the basis that the Brawn GP team is based in Brackley, Northants (which is right on the outskirts of the region and very rarely covered at any other time on the program).
So it was no surprise last night then to see Look East running with a headline story of a possible case of Swine Flu in Northants. What started as a credible story soon turned into a farce as the man in question, Chris Clarke, was filmed communicating via a phone from behind the windows of his house (yes, the threat was allegedly that bad) only to pronounce that although he had indeed just returned from Mexico, he was fairly sure it was just a 24 hour minor cold.
Of course, being the main story the debate and scaremongering continued with more images of the man quarantined to his house, despite him constantly reiterating that he felt fine except for a bit of a sniffle.
At this point the story was already out of control, but to turn on BBC Breakfast at 7.05 this morning and see the same piece on the national news program was mind-blowing. And guess what – just as they switched over to Chris, still penned in behind his PVC windows, he announced that his doctor had just called and given him the all clear, much to the BBC’s great disapointment. Now all they were left with was a peeping Tom shot of a man through his net curtains with a bit of a cold.
Shame no-one told Radio 1’s Newsbeat though, who still ran with the story on its 7.30am bulletin, still panicing the general public into thinking Swine Flu was on their doorstep. Even the BBC website carried the story in all its glory.
Now don’t get me wrong, Swine Flu will reach the UK, but given that there’s somewhere in the region of 60 million people living here and in every country other than Mexico it has affected no more than a few dozen people, all of which have had very mild symptoms, there’s hardly cause to be worrying.
Things like this happen all the time in the media. Not so long ago Bluetounge was going to wipe us all out if Bird Flu didn’t get us first. Somewhere in a dark corner of the BBC offices there’s probably still huddled a few timid hacks, scared to death that the Millenium Bug is going to get them.
