Chris Blattman

Search
Close this search box.

My BBC bubble bursts

I’m just finishing a whirlwind 36-hour trip to London (alas, NGO partner meetings) and came to one dismaying discovery during my stay: the BBC is trash.

Those thoughtful, intelligent news broadcasts on American radio and African satellite TV? Turns out that quality is easy to come by when you repeat the same polished 30 minutes of coverage over and over again. The 24-hour BBC News channel in Britain? Shoddy rubbish.

People’s Exhibit A: On the 11 o’clock evening news, they read the daily newspapers out loud.

Not all is lost. I still cherish my daily Africa Today podcast.

8 Responses

  1. My wife used to volunteer at a radio station reading magazines for print handicapped people (blind, low vision etc). There are a large number of people who have trouble reading the paper and look forward to this little segment on the radio. I also like getting the podcasts as I don’t read the newspaper and it’s a good chance for me to stay abreast of current issues, considering most newspapers websites are absolute trash with the latest news about Britney or Brangelina not the same news in the printed edition.

  2. Yup, the reading of tomorrow’s headlines is a Newsnight tradition. All the quality programming has moved from BBC 2 to BBC 4 though.

  3. umm, there’s always been a tradition reading out the headlines in tomorrow’s papers, when the first editions are sent to press around 11pm … is that what you’re talking about? I’ve always liked that feature.

  4. not true!!! bbc news 24 may not be great, but the BBC World Service radio is without doubt the single best news media channel in the world. And if you live in the UK, Radio 4 is unbeatable.

  5. “…they read the daily newspapers out loud.”

    that’s hilarious. almost made coffee shoot out of my nose.

  6. I like the newspaper reading, as a way of finding out what’s in the papers when I can’t see them. Think of it as reporting on papers, not as a cheating way of avoiding reporting the news.

  7. I had the exact same realization while traveling through Syria and Jordan last week. I also found that Al Jazeera English isn’t far behind.

Why We Fight - Book Cover
Subscribe to Blog