20 years on
I was going to keep quiet about this - but now that Jon Snow has admitted that today he's notching up 20 years in the Channel 4 News hot seat, I may as well confess: this month also marked my 20th anniversary at The World Tonight.
I find it hard to believe, if only because I still often feel that I'm only now beginning to get the hang of it. I clearly remember my first day, walking up Regent Street from Oxford Circus Tube station (will we ever return to the bright lights of the West End from our current White City desert?) and suddenly I was rooted to the spot. I had never presented a live radio programme in my life - and I was about to make my debut on Radio 4. Terrified doesn't begin to describe my emotions.
Those were the days when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, half of Europe was behind the Iron Curtain, and we used tape recorders with giant spools of magnetic tape. We had no internet, no mobile phones, no Google and no Wikipedia. If we wanted some background information, we phoned the BBC News Information library (Newsinf to its devotees) and waited patiently for a messenger to deliver a bulging envelope stuffed with photocopied press cuttings.
I couldn't have chosen a better time to start on a programme that then as now paid special attention to news from overseas. Within months, central and eastern Europe emerged from decades of Communist rule, and by November, the Berlin Wall was coming down. The following year, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and soon I was part of an ambitious experiment known as Scud FM, officially Radio 4 News FM, devoted only to news of the war from the Gulf.
Next year, The World Tonight will celebrate its 40th birthday, which means that I'll have been presenting it for more than half of its life. If my editors will let me - and if you don't mind - I'd still like to carry on just a bit longer. As I say, I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~05~RS~)
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Take care Robin lest the curse of the newsreader catches up with you!
Female newsreaders are more susceptible to this, but in these more equal times - beware the curse! You have the advantage that the age spots and wrinkles can hide beneath your beard. But isn't it getting a bit ....brindled(?) Please don't do a Berlusconi!
Only in America do old journos survive and then only men. The place is full of Money Honeys. (or whatever the latest slang is!)
As an aside: "bulging envelope stuffed with photocopied press cuttings" do you mean to tell me that the BBC photocopied everything! All of Fleet Street / New York Times/ Boston Globe and Mail / Washington Post and the San Francisco papers (to my certain knowledge) as you well know employed a system of paper folders containing actual press cuttings and these could only be read at the library by most people and on no account could they be taken out of the building on pain of instant dismissal! So that is where the forests went - photocopying for the BBC journos!
Well done for twenty years!
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"and we used tape recorders with giant spools of magnetic tape. We had no internet, no mobile phones, no Google and no Wikipedia. If we wanted some background information, we phoned the BBC News Information library (Newsinf to its devotees) and waited patiently for a messenger to deliver a bulging envelope stuffed with photocopied press cuttings."
...and some would suggest that was a much better time - that is for the audience - calm, considered journalism, not that The World Tonight normally suffers from the verbal incontinence and information overload that so many TV/radio programmes do in this 24/7 world that we all now have to live in.
/rant.
Best wished for the next 20 years Robin! :~)
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#2. Boilerplated wrote:
"...and some would suggest that was a much better time"
I don't agree - I love the technological possibilities that were not around in the past BRB (before Robin's beard!). It really is nice to be able to check things up and no longer be dependent on just a few news sources.
The downside is of course that it is, if anything, more difficult to separate the wood from the trees as there are now some many sources of 'news'. I am particularly pleased to be able to read and view the news from the perspective of other (non English speaking and non white) nations. It makes me even more sad that I am fluent in no more than a couple (maybe three) languages. Why do the English learn only a few (European) languages!
I must say that blogging in a language that is not one's own native tongue is a challenge, (but very good for me and everybody else who would try it)! Without the technology none of this would be possible so on balance I think the technological advances in the last twenty years are a good thing.
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If we wanted some background information, we phoned the BBC News Information library (Newsinf to its devotees) and waited patiently for a messenger to deliver a bulging envelope stuffed with photocopied press cuttings.
I'm not sure this is something that should go in the "fond memories" file. It demonstrates an appalling lack of independent research. And the BBC is still doing this - getting its "information" from press cuttings, tweaking it a little to make sure it is faithful to the standard lefty BBC line and then publishing it.
I have no doubt that all information was/is gleaned from left wing sources. How could it be otherwise? This is the BBC we are talking about - positioned somewhere between the left and the far left politically, and incredibly weak on background knowledge.
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#3
"It really is nice to be able to check things up and no longer be dependent on just a few news sources."
My comment was about the style of delivery, not how the public access news, the media industry having (quick) access to so much more raw data/information should have made final delivery (to viewer/listener) better but in fact journalism has become lazy and in some cases inaccurate - now it seems that it's speed of delivery, say something, anything, that matters most and only then check the facts/relevance of what has been said.
As I said, 20 years ago if the BBC said something then the view/listener could be 99% certain that (unless it was April 1st...) that the details were correct and accurate.
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#4
"I have no doubt that all information was/is gleaned from left wing sources. How could it be otherwise? This is the BBC we are talking about - positioned somewhere between the left and the far left politically, and incredibly weak on background knowledge."
That sort of rubbish cracks me up every time I read it, why, because the same thing is said by all wings of the political debate, the left accuse the BBC of leaning to the right wing, the right accuse the BBC of leaning to the left whilst the centre accuse the BBC of leaning to either left or right but never taking a non establishment point of view.
Anyone who has watched/listened to other, especially non UK, news sources will know how unbiased the BBC is in its delivery, that is not to say that it doesn't allow people to put their own points of view across, nor should it be prevented from doing so - one persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter - as the saying goes...
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6. Boilerplated,
I am glad that I amused you. There is so little laughter in this world.
I have been following the BBC's lefty bias for over a decade now. When the far left accuse the BBC of being "right wing," all they are saying is that the BBC is not left enough for them. This was ably demonstrated in the response to Mark Thompson's blog, in which he defended the BBC's refusal to broadcast the DEC appeal for Gaza.
The blog has so far attracted over 2200 comments, the majority of them from the left, and a great number of them venomous in the extreme against Thompson and the BBC for making one effort to appear to be impartial in coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/01/bbc_and_the_gaza_appeal.html
In contrast, there are many sites on the Internet that have made and continue to make a serious study of the BBC's left wing bias, citing chapter and verse.
Besides, there are a number of ex-BBC staff who have admitted their bias. Anthony Jay is one. Others, like Robin Aitken, have described their isolation at the BBC because they didn't fall in with the left wing, Labour-supporting crowd.
Finally, on this very blog, our esteemed BBC host, left wing of course, posed this question:
Will Obama get tough with the Israelis?
Perhaps we should ask Robin Lustig himself, since he's here, if he would ever in his wildest dreams think of asking such a question about the Palestinians.
In case he doesn't reply, I'll answer for him:
No. In fact, the thought would not even cross his mind.
Now, Boilerplated, I hope you will be able to stop laughing long enough to seriously consider my response.
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#7
"I have been following the BBC's lefty bias for over a decade now. "
...and I've been following it's unbiased coverage for the 30 years...
As for your comment about the DEC Gaza appeal and it's non screening by the BBC, it's precisely because the BBC wants to remain unbiased and unaligned that it wasn't shown and as such proves that it is none aligned to any political faction - unlike some of the so called fair and balanced journalism one can watch here in the UK...
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As I said, the non-screening was a rare attempt by the BBC to appear to be impartial.
Jeremy Bowen, Middle East Editor, has just been found by the BBC Trust to be less than fair to the Israelis in his reporting on the conflict. Many on the left are trying to put that forward as an example of the BBC's impartiality, believe it or not.
But I note that you have ignored the main points I made in my last comment, so I guess I'll just leave it at that.
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#9
"Jeremy Bowen, Middle East Editor, has just been found by the BBC Trust to be less than fair to the Israelis in his reporting on the conflict."
Now that is a part of the BBC that is most certainly not unbiased (in MY opinion), set up with a very narrow terms of reference, after the BBC had a run in with (would you believe it) a 'lefty' government - the fact that you cite the BBC Trust blows your argument about the BBC out of the water in my opinion. Actually your argument sounds rather like you might be indulging in a spot of reverse anti-Semitism (or at least being biased towards Israel here, everything Israel does is good, everything done against Israel is bad...
"But I note that you have ignored the main points I made in my last comment"
What main point was that, if it wasn't your opinion that the BBC has a left-wing bias?
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Main points, plural.
You were the one ignoring them so you should know which ones they were.
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#11
"You were the one ignoring them so you should know which ones they were."
Tell me what I'm ignoring then, it's possible that I have miss-understood the points you are attempting to make. I thought your points were about (supposed) BBC bias - using the recent complaint and judgement against Jeremy Bowen and the DEC Gaza row as examples?
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So you are just going to continue to ignore them?
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re comment made @ #13
Try reading what I said @ #12, assuming that your unreferenced comment was actually directed at me...
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Yikes ! I seem to have stumbled into a 'blog fight'..
Keep up the good work Mr Lustig. Although the problem I have with the World Tonight is that it kinda has that 15 minute 'bump' at the end which they have to fill in with a book at bedtime [which is not actually a book at bedtime at all - that is on at around 00.30 after the later news].
So why not hang around for 15 minutes for some 'Daily Show' style tomfoolery in the manner of Jon Stewart ? Well, maybe not..
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#15
"So why not hang around for 15 minutes for some 'Daily Show' style tomfoolery in the manner of Jon Stewart ? Well, maybe not.."
"lordBeddGelert" I get the distinct feeling that Radio Five Live might be more your 'brew' were current affairs is concerned!...
Please The World to Night (and all the rest of Radio Fours current affairs progs), get yourselves back to BH and in that way you can look up at Prospero and Ariel, think of Lord Reith and let the great history of the BBC colour your journalistic output for the rest of the day...
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15. lordBeddGelert,
It's not much of a fight. Boilerlated, in the white shorts, is in the corner desperately fumbling for a clinch.
12. Boilerplated,
I thought you were being deliberately obtuse, but perhaps you were not.
I was referring to no. 7. You ignored all the points I made in the second half of the comment, after the link.
Now if you want to debate this issue, we can't do it with you pretending not to see what I wrote.
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#17
"I was referring to no. 7. You ignored all the points I made in the second half of the comment, after the link."
Oh, you mean that anti BBC rant?
Sorry, I try not to respond to rants as it just encourages more rantings.
The issue we (not you) are trying to discuss is 20 years of RL fronting TWT (and the changes in that time), I would be interested in your opinion on that though...
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18. Boilerplated,
You were trying to dismiss BBC bias until I trumped your weak hand.
Now you can put your nose up in the air and call no. 7 whatever you like, but you can't disguise the fact that the only answer you have to the points I raised in that comment is to run from them.
If this were a live debate, you'd be laughed off the floor.
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#19
You have done nothing of the sort, now either prove that the BBC is a lefty wing media group (in the same way that FoxNews is a right wing media group) or retract...
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I believe we are caught up in the old circular argument here. So rather than present you with the evidence I've gleaned over the past ten years of the BBC's left wing bias (which could take a while and which you'll simply call a "rant") I'll step out of it.
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#21
and which you'll simply call a "rant"
Of course I (and many others) will if someone makes accusations without offering any impartial evidence. Anyway, I don't actually need to offer any evidence, you are the one making the accusations of biased reporting, not me...
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