Yes, a major world statesmen may have died, but must your regular programmes be interrupted and be replaced by grief whore news specials? That is what news programmes are for after all! At least with the Mandela saturation we’ll be spared live storm surge specials presented by wellied reporters knee deep in the floods explaining that police are advising against disaster sightseers putting themselves in danger. With that eye-wateringly expensive studio, and all its facilites in London what is the point of live reports anyway? Apart from giving the little scallies in the background the chance to swear and gesture at the camera?

The BBC: How did it ever reach this point?

but must your regular programmes be interrupted

Er, it’s 9:20 in the morning, what are you missing??

Last night.

The BBC: How did it ever reach this point?

Yes, damn them for reporting current affairs on the news 🙄

Poor, even by your standards, Cressers.

TBH, I think they overprepared in terms of Mandela material. They had more than an hour of it on the Ten O’Clock News last night, which I watched because I wanted to see reports about the storm surge. Most of what I saw was just documentary waffle, a series of pre-prepared statements from worthies, and pics of a couple of dozen people standing by a wall in Johannesburg.

I’m sure that many hundreds if not thousands of people down the East Coast wanted to hear how high tide further north had impacted on sea defences, but I gave up at 11pm none the wiser.

I have every respect for Mandela’s significance and achievements, but I think once you’ve moved from news into generalised waffle from Huw, you should move on to the rest of the bulletin and put the rest into a special programme to air after the news.

dont worry isnt there an eastenders omnibus on sunday?

I think the thing is that the number of people who have an interest in Nelson Mandela hugely exceeds those wondering about the state of the sea defenses somewhere they don;t live? You can find out what’s going on at the beach a hundred miles away by going on twitter or Facebook and get more reliable and up to date news than you will on a national news program. It’s not that it’s not important to those affected but it is, in the scheme of things, a local event.

Mandela deserves all the air time he gets over the coming days in my opinion.

I’d expect the Beeb to rpeort the news, but not interrupt other programmes unless it was a dire emergency.

What were you doing to prevent you from posting this last night?

It’s a personal thing, obviously, but my view is that you can and should accommodate more than one news item in an hour long bulletin. I’m never that interested in eulogy TV, I suspect I’m not alone in that. I’d rather watch a good well-structured documentary about Mandela’s life than the kind of freeform mish-mash of ‘now to our Washington correspondent’ blather that the Beeb served up last night.

They could come round to mine and report on my suppository prescription..
It’s like feeding a small naked mole rat twice a day

omnomnomnom

I decided to go to bed. There is more of a daytime audience on STW, and the point remains valid.

I’m happy for the telly to feature loads and loads of tributes, retrospectives, documentaries etc. on Mandela, but I agree that the “news” isn’t actually the right place for this. The “news” aspect of this is actually pretty simple – the guy was 95, had been ill for some time and his death was totally expected. So, report the news aspects – that he has gone, yes cover the immediate reactions both in South Africa and the statements from Obama, Cameron, the Pope etc. but keep the other stuff for separate programming in my opinion. That he went to prison for thirty years, became president, divorced Winnie and met the Spice Girls is not, in December 2013, “news” so I don’t see that it needs to be covered, certainly not in the depth it has been – maybe a brief outline to provide a context but not the depth and extent that we’ve been getting.

watching the mandela news?

What were you doing to prevent you from posting this last night?

Trying to work out whether or not he should be offended enough to post a tedious thread?

They could come round to mine and report on my suppository prescription..
It’s like feeding a small naked mole rat twice a day

“And now to our health correspondent, Fergus Walsh, at Yunki’s house. We should warn you that some viewers will find these scenes distressing…”

I watched a Sky+ recording of Fresh Meat. It was only interrupted when I went for a wee wee.

rather hear about mandella than nigella

he led an amazing life from prison to the spice girls it deserves to be told

if TV is so important to you that a disruption to the scheduled programmes is rantworthy you probably need to ride your bike more

They could come round to mine and report on my suppository prescription..
It’s like feeding a small naked mole rat twice a day
omnomnomnom

This made me laugh out loud

Wind yer bleedin’ neck in and deal with it.

martinhutch – Member

It’s a personal thing, obviously, but my view is that you can and should accommodate more than one news item in an hour long bulletin. I’m never that interested in eulogy TV, I suspect I’m not alone in that. I’d rather watch a good well-structured documentary about Mandela’s life than the kind of freeform mish-mash of ‘now to our Washington correspondent’ blather that the Beeb served up last night.

+1

There’s more than one channel. And an off-switch.

Yes – Huw and the photo of the same wall with dancing people – where the sidebar gave three different locations – got a bit tedious – could have been way better – and was on BBC2 – BUT..

This is the last great man who will die in our time. Genuinely moving.
I’d be upset if they interrupt 10% as much when the queen dies.

He deserved it. If you don’t get why he was so important and how much he means to the world, and the model he set for a different way of resolving things, a better way of being a man, then naff off into the shadows of ignorance and complacency. 👿

This is the last great man who will die in our time. Genuinely moving.
I’d be upset if they interrupt 10% as much when the queen dies.

He deserved it. If you don’t get why he was so important and how much he means to the world, and the model he set for a different way of resolving things, a better way of being a man, then naff off into the shadows of ignorance and complacency.

This. Many times over.

Tories of the world take note: this is the sort of world leader deserving of a taxpayer funded state funeral and a museum in their name.

Ah, yes… Mrs Windsor’s inevitable demise. I dread to think what the Beeb will do.

This photo, for me sums up why he is worth the air time;

(taken from here which is worth a read: http://corriecorfield.tumblr.com/post/69154377530

Taken on the day he became president.

Because of his leadership she’s grown up in a country not riven by an anti-whites backlash and descent into tribal battles that afflict so much of Africa. It’s not a perfect country by any means but he as an individual has made it a far, far better place than it could have been.

The meedja kind of painted itself into a corner with the ‘Peoples Princess’ really. Where it was deemed necessary to have 24 blanket coverage, and the mere mention of anything else was verboten, and everyone had to look solumn and nobody was allowed to mention that, at the end of the day, she was just an attention seeking clothes horse

At least Mandella more than justifies it! Though I’m sure it’s going to get a bit nauseating watching political pygmies like Dave delivering his cynical and opportunistic heartfelt and sincere eulogy

Wind yer bleedin’ neck in and deal with it.

Have you considered practising what you preach ? you seem unduly wound up by him being wound up.

Is this actually a generalised catch-all rant, or is it a very specific rant, technically speaking?

What were you doing to prevent you from posting this last night?

Trying to work out whether or not he should be offended enough to post another tedious thread?
FIFY

There’s some points being spectacularly missed by some people on this thread. I don’t think that anyone is disputing the significance and amazing contribution to humanity that came from him, but whether that means that the “news” of the day when he dies should be compiled how it has been, and indeed whether that effectively acknowledges the man, is what is in question.

but whether that means that the “news” of the day when he dies should be compiled how it has been

they *should* have run with the flooding on the East Coast as the number 1 item then as the OP wanted?

There’s too much telly and not enough DECENT stuff to fill it.
Why does every programme have to tell you what’s coming up later in the programme and then have to recap what happened earlier before showing it to you.
We are not total **** retards.

they *should* have run with the flooding on the East Coast as the number 1 item then as the OP wanted?

Not what I said at all, Mandela’s passing was clearly the number one story, if you read my earlier post I think I’m clear on that – that he died yesterday was big news, and some associated, current comment, statements from world leaders etc. are clearly part of the news story. And some part of the backstory to provide context as to why a 95 year old man dying is important is justified. But I think the flooding was more newsworthy yesterday than a whole documentary’s worth of his life story.

that is annoying especially on documentaries- same point recapped over an over when it is not even complicated – surely they realise that idiots dont watch them 😉

edlong

nope – You might make good points, but he doesn’t. It was a trolling whinge against interruption and “grief whore news specials” – hence the lack of argument I suspect when he posted later. Stylistically BBC1 annoyed me, but BBC2 was done rather well. Different programmes, different tastes. Difficult to get right, but had to be done.

We also live in an ethnically diverse society – despite what you usually see at Trail Centres. He meant a fair bit to me, but I’m sure he meant way more to many people.

There is an off-switch. The OP asked a question – it is being answered.

What was the BBC2 programme? – I turned over briefly to get away from a recap of the recap of the sincere eulogy from a bloke whose ‘political inspiration’ believed NM was a terrorist and campaigned against sanctions in the 80s.

But all I found was that Sarah Millican doing nob gags.

Why does every programme have to tell you what’s coming up later in the programme and then have to recap what happened earlier before showing it to you.

To explain – it’s because people forget stuff.

Essentially, people will forget stuff if you don’t tell them (a) what you’re going to tell them, (b) then tell them (with details), then (c) recap. Three times is the rule, apparently.

Or, to conclude, people forget stuff.

Can someone give me a summary of the thread thus far?

What can I expect to read next?

Some bloke moaning about news coverage of an influential old man dying.

Some other blokes moaning about his moaning

Coming up: more moaning about the moaning.

Can someone give me a summary of the thread thus far?

What can I expect to read next?

nob gags
mole rats
mammaries

more of the same