Making News
‘CHRIS Moyles. Scab! Terry Wogan. Scab! Jo Wiley. Scab! Lucy the Blue Peter dog. Scab!
| ”Let them eat cake” |
Its day two of the strike at the BBC, in which 6,500 workers are protesting over plans to cut 3,800 jobs and privatise a further 2,000.
NUJ, says the banner being held aloft to the Timess snapper. Here is the news…Were on STRIKE!
To those of you not in the know, the NUJ is the union for those journalists who like to join such bodies, and a strike is what happens on the London Underground on particularly sunny days.
But rather than look at the protest, the trio of big name radio stars and the 10,500 other BBC staffers who crossed the picket line, shouldnt the hacks be trying to think of something catchier than the message writ large on that placard?
This is their jobs theyre trying to keep, after all. Perhaps privatised journalists will come up with a few more remarkable phrases than the one featured in the paper.
So much for the live action. What about the broadcasts, which were interrupted by the likes of Jeremy Paxman, Dermot Murnaghan and his morning show co-host Natasha Kaplinksys decision to support the strikers and show their solidarity by staying in bed.
In a section entitled The corporation regrets…, the Telegraph says what normal service was and what viewers got instead.
Instead of Newsnight, and Paxman repeating the same question over and over and over, viewers got a repeat of Timewatch, a documentary on Britains lost Colosseum.
Having for once resisted the urge to broadcast an episode of Only Fools And Horses for the umpteenth time or another drip of EastEnders, the BBC did a pretty good job of plugging the gaps.
But surely if the Beeb wants to show us some news it could just turn what cameras are still rolling on its disgruntled staff.
Or pass it all off as a reality TV show in which whoever stops the odious, and highly paid, Moyles getting to work gets to keep their job…’
Posted: 24th, May 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
