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ALL2008

Listed below are comments made by ALL2008 between Wednesday, 11th June 2008 and Tuesday, 19th August 2008.

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UK news coverage 12:35pm on 19 Aug 2008 So there we have it. Mark Byford has had two months to reply to these comments, but has declined to do so.

It's old-school BBC management: "We'll give you the party line, but we won't get drawn into debate."

Maybe they'll all start listening again the next time the Charter's up for renewal.

Arrogance!
UK news coverage 08:43am on 23 Jun 2008 AND this morning on Breakfast, Julia Botfield live from.... a school in Ealing. Glad to see that West London aston hasn't been completely retired!
UK news coverage 6:01pm on 12 Jun 2008 It's perfectly simple, ros1957. David Sillito needed the opportunity to stand on a Mediterranean quayside and explain that this was a story with no pictures and no access.

With any luck, Mr Sillito will now be equally as enthusiastic about travelling to arts/ents stories in Cornwall, Carlisle, County Down etc etc.... (and programme editors will be equally keen to cover the stories).
UK news coverage 11:13am on 12 Jun 2008 Thanks, leoCWD for reminding us of the difficulties that sports reporters have in distinguishing England from the other home nations - particularly on 'the News Channel' (formerly News 24) and Radio Five Live.

Frequently, sports corrs talk about 'the national team' or 'our squad' when they mean England.

Mihir Bose seems to have learned the distinction - but maybe it's his job as Sports Editor to filter the message down through the ranks...?
UK news coverage 5:10pm on 11 Jun 2008 I've worked very closely with the BBC's reporting staff over the years, and here's my assessment.

1. Most BBC reporters will happily hop on a plane to Beijing, but not a train to Birmingham. (This is only human nature, but they should remember who pays the licence fee.)

2. Lead-in writers and reporters treat the nations and regions as amorphous territories, saying 'in Wales', or 'in Scotland', rather than narrowing the descriptive tag down to a town, as they would do with an English story.

3. Many too many pre-filmed case studies and live reports happen in London, (often west London, often Ealing). West of Shepherd's Bush must be the most intensively filmed area in the world.

4. Stop making such a self-congratulatory fuss about taking the news out on the road, as with Rory Cellan-Jones's UK broadband tour. Reporting from around the UK should be the norm, not a special effort.

5. Extend the regional balance to Radio Five Live's sports news team. It is common to hear extended coverage of the English football team - but much less about Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. A case in point: the coverage of Steve McClaren's departure compared with similar managerial changes in Scotland and Wales. Where is the editorial leadership on this?

6. If 'stars' don't want to relocate from London to Manchester, let them take their chances on the open market. Everyone's replaceable. Everyone.

7. Think long and hard about why events in London (murders, local politics, even freak weather occurrences) get SO much more coverage than comparable events in the nations and regions.

8. It would be nice to think that someone actually reads this blog. Do you read the comments, Mark?

9. I could tell you the story about the reporter who faked a car breakdown rather than drive from W12 to the English Midlands, but I won't.

Thanks.

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