Spent most of the morning on the couch, unable to move, recovering from Saturday night, and due to a mysterious malfunction of my DVD player, watching BBC News 24. Now, I'm fully aware of the "demands" of 24 hour news, which news people seem to use to excuse showing a load of shit on 24 hour news channels, and I'm aware that Sunday morning isn't exactly the fastest of news days, but the coverage of Madeline McCann's parents leaving Portugal seemed excessive by any rational standard. At about 6:35 they left the pictures of journalists outside the Portuguese villa the McCann's were staying in to go to the sports news. At about 6:38 they interrupted the sports news to return to the pictures because ... oh ... absolutely nothing was happening. They were still waiting there, watching absolutely nothing at about 7:05 when I had to go and throw up (due to hangover, rather than the pictures).
I'm not wanting to comment on the newsworthiness or otherwise of this event, I was more concerned with the way the BBC distanced itself from the reporting. The number of times they referred to the huge interest of the media in the case and gaped at the amount of media people encamped outside the villa seemed to suggest that the BBC thought itself apart from all this sensationalist reporting.
The BBC had a reporter at the villa, a reporter at the airport and now they are in the McCann's hometown, not only reporting but also giving the main headlines from there. But of course the BBC are not a part of the frenzy around the McCanns.
The worst bit was the reporter outside the airport telling us about the reporters following the McCann's car, some overtaking it to get better (and she stressed that these were press photographers - not the so much classier TV news people) shots, meaning the McCann's journey took longer than it should have done (perhaps an implication that these reporters were acting dangerously?). Of course this report followed on from ... shots of the McCann's car driving to the airport which included ... close up shots of the McCann's in their car taken by an overtaking camera man.
I'm not sure I want to criticise the BBC specifically, maybe two or three years ago I may have expected better from them but probably not now, it is more the media as a whole which seems unable to comprehend it's own position in the reporting of news. Which is to say that any reporter will be reporting among a herd of reporters and they will all be reporting on the herd of reporters this event has attracted, but they will all report as if they were not included in this herd, as if they have the right to be there and it is all the others who have turned it into a circus.
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