To want to read the news

Ooooh, that's a conversation starter OP!

Unreasonable? No. Good observation.

BBC news has becoming many things other than news:
self- advertising for programmes such as panorama, journalism on the cheap - regurgitating 'bits' of items that we also see on e.g. 'The One Show / Watchdog , promoting 'viral' videos / You-Tube clips ...

Journalism is evidently done ' on the cheap' these days and I very much suspect that internet forums such as Gransnet are trawled and topical items then picked up as subject matter to generate interest and pad out daily news / local radio programmes.

Is it because we are bringing up a generation of non-readers - well no, not BECAUSE, but I think it is symptomatic of the general dumbing down for an audience that the beeb perceives to have less time or will to focus on extended coverage ... a 'soundbite' generation.

Yes visual information has more impact. I agree with Imperfect there is all sorts of rubbish masquerading as news now.

I agree, Esspee When you hear it said once, with visual expression and verbal intonation, you get from it what you are meant to believe. With the printed word, you can go back for another look to see what was REALLY being said and pick out the weak logic.

I do agree about despising all the advertising of forthcoming programmes being erroneously presented on TV as news item We pay for this "service". I wish the beeb would get on with doing what we pay them for!

I remember this from DECADES ago.
Says it all!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVlfvdH7qwY

Thanks for that Maw - so apt! I wonder if that was part of TWTWTW?

The Frost Report apparently (which I think succeeded it?)

Just looked up the dates of both programmes - clearly not enough to do today ha ha. Yes, you are right about the chronology.

Thank you for that clip- loved it.

I gave up watching TV news some time ago. I get my news from Radio 4 in the main. I only watch it if there is something visual- like these awful hurricanes- that I should know about. I gave up on newspapers years ago- too much rubbish in them.

I can't see much news on TV at all, mostly it is pop star related drivel, celebs that I have never heard of or political commentators sneering at everybody else.

I do like Russia Today news, it provides a different outlook to things, not that we can believe everything w are told but just some different view points and a lot less celebs.

I always read rather than watch the news. My journalist husband told me years ago that a TV news story had fewer words than the same piece covered by the 'Sun'.

I feel that visuals tell their own story (often emotive rather than objective) and brevity also distorts a complex issue. I like to read source material and read opinion pieces so I can make up my own mind.

Another problem is the extreme bias of TV news.

Even radio news can be biased and incomplete.

I am a news junkie, read several papers a day and form my own opinion. It is clear that, with most social and political stories, much information that should be in the public sphere is deliberately witheld or kept back until someone leaks it. Then one says, 'Ah! That's what it was really all about.'

Esspee, this is very interesting to me as I have recently given up watching TV news and have reverted to the radio. The sensationalist and more horrifying the better captions on the box are mere tittilation and I became so involved as a voyeur that I was not absorbing the more important (in my opinion) detail. I'm feeling much more satisfied with my news intake these days - awful though much of the subject matter is at present - but I've always been told that good news tends not to be attractive to the majority of people. I do not include myself in that number. I love reading happy stuff.

Never believe what you read in newspapers - journalists make up stories and TV news coverage is no better.

Very sore point with me - if I could get my hands on the scum that wrote about my baby daughter's death and the editor that put it on the front page of the Christmas Eve edition of a local rag completely without our knowledge I would kick them hard and teach them some basic manners and consideration for people.

Rant over!

That's awful chocolate pudding dreadful thing to do. Must have been heartbreaking for you all.
When my son died we expected it to be splashed on the papers but Pavarotti died the next day, so we only made the local rag. Which was bad enough.
I do like to read the paper but I read a lot of things with a pinch of salt.

We watch the news, tongue in cheek. Amazed at the number of journalists the BBC send to the ends of the earth - and let them stand in the rain or wind to tell us something that the guy in the studio has just told us. Latest from Florida had us laughing last night. Husband used to watch RT news until he realised that it was a lot of propaganda. Can we believe anything we read or hear?

chocolatepudding we had similar tawdry treatment. I asked for no reporters/ photographers at my child's funeral. The next week, we were (again) headline news, front page - a huge photo of us following her coffin into church ... all for sales! That and a letter through my door the day after her funeral stating that ours was an 'Interesting story' and did we want to have a magazine deal out of it?

I prefer radio news, try to avoid being sucked into voyeurism and not to lose sight of the bias and I will never forget what it feels like for my misfortune to have been turned into other people's emotional gratification.

I read news on line, there are quite a few sites that give better and more accurate news than the mainstream newspaper sites.
But for real news I listen to the BBC World Service.

I would rather read the news every time. On TV they sensationalise the news with bongo drum rolls, lights flashing. Can't watch the presenters and their frantic arms flying around trying to up the story and their own importance. Oops sorry folks it could be just me.

Horatia the Snows came to mind!

I too dislike the video only news stories on BBC website, basically because I rarely take in the news in a silent room.
Likewise I abhor the sensationalist approach of the papers, both local and national; it adds to people's misery at an already difficult time.

Appalling indictment of Press behaviour (or lack of it ) and you have my deepest sympathy.
At their best, the press can be fearless e.g. In battle zones, but at their worst, "scum" springs to mind.

I read a daily paper & 2 on Saturday/Sunday. I watch local tv news & listen to local radio.

I am more interested in what is happening in my local area although I don't ignore World news I get fed up with hearing the same news at every news bulletin

Channel 4 news seems to me to be the only tv news worth watching.
I listen to radio 4 and 5 if near a radio during the day, especially in the car. The coverage is more detailed and analytical than the tv news

I worry that the news is no longer news but opinion