Charlie Brooker has done it again! After three brilliant series of Screen Wipe Charlie has set his satirical eye on the news of today and how it has developed into what it is. After five episodes, I've found myself entertained, tickled and often scared witless by each programme and eager to watch the sixth and final episode which will air on BBC 4 next Wednesday.
Charlie has focused on how news anchors have changed, how the objective slant of news has changed to fit with today's more emotive and subjective ways of reporting news, how citizen journalism has grown, how the G20 Summit was reported, how news isn't so cut-and-dry these days, how science is abused in the news, news in America (and how it's presented), how negative stories seem to dominate and how news graphics have developed over the years.
With regard to anchors, he looked at how the former male-dominated, dull approach has given way to unisex co-hosting with a much more informal, chummy, friendly approach. Most regional news anchors - or, as we would say, presenters - these days guffaw around in front of the cameras like idiotic twerps, whereas national news anchors seem to present the news with such an air of seriousness it looks as though they may explode with the leaden weight of presented matters at any second.
In 1984, a series of famines in the Afar region of Ethiopia killed many, many people (between 40,00 and 80,000). We were treated with images of pot-bellied, malnourished children and, generally, people in immensely depraved squalor. This prompted the single 'Do They Know it's Christmas?' and the subsequent Live Aid appeal. This enabled British people to show their charity and donate cash. In '89 the Berlin wall was brought down, and everyone was happy - up until that point news was biased in as much as it knew to focus mainly on affected parties. But then a few certain events changed the face of news for ever. The Rwandan massacre showed how neither the Hutus or Tutsis were victims, but how both parties' inhumanity had led to the deaths of millions of their own people. Then on September 11th 2001 we were treated to Die Hard-esque scenes in which two jets were plunged into the World Trade Towers in New York by Islamic extremists. Now, the news just seems to purvey the despicable nature of man, with accounts of school shootings, war coverage, murders and other deviant goings-on dominating headlines.
With the death of Diana, a public outcry encouraged the Queen to address her death. Some would say that her death marked a turning point in news coverage when a minority group of demanding, emotional and demonstrative people encouraged reporting to become much more subjective. Now, whereas bystanders used to be questioned only if they witnessed important news events, bystanders seem to be quizzed hither and thither until we now feel that news isn't an objective thing at all, but subjective accounts of objective events presented in a seemingly objective manner. Also, citizens seem to have an active part in news with today's mobile phone culture. Images of 7/11, the explosion of the Buncefield oil depot, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and other such events have given scope to people to submit their own footage. But this sort of stuff hasn't always got news value.
In early February 2009 two days' worth of heavy snow brought England to a stand-still. This enabled thousands of people to send in their happy, zany, irrelevant snaps to the BBC which were subsequently published online - all 35,000 of them. This then turned into a small, human interest story due to the huge number of submitted photos. But why? It's not news. But should it be separate? Do people even care these days? Are they aware? This is just one point Charlie goes after.
I would suggest watching every episode of the show if possible as it contains many gems. But, apart from that, it's also hugely enlightening and entertaining - with spots on American news and such right-wing nut jobs as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
To watch the compilation episode which aired last night, use the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jhp50
No comments:
Post a Comment