Bananas - we have seven, no, three...
One of the bugbears of rolling news, breaking news, and the importance of Being First is the fact that for the first few hours, you just get a load of garbage. As Simon mentions below, it's Yes, We Have No Bananas. I note that this afternoon BBC NEWS are reporting three (3) blasts on the Underground network and one (1) on a double-decker bus.
Not seven (7) and three (1).
This ramps down the size of the incident by a considerable margin, of course. It's clear that when blasts happened between stations, they were initially reported as a separate blast at each station. Similarly, 3 people reporting the one bus were all counted individually.
The important thing here is that in exaggerating the story, the news outlets created more panic and hype - completing the job the terrorists started.
A more measured approach, reporting only known facts and not falling into the trap of needing to fill airtime with speculation, fuelling the sense of alarm, would actually serve to reinforce the message that we will not allow terrorists to defeat us.
Looking across the office now, Sky news is still showing a big red NEWSFLASH graphic, and endlessly repeating grainy, out of focus video footage and interviews with shocked victims. Again, all of this serves the terrorists, and not the public good.
Not seven (7) and three (1).
This ramps down the size of the incident by a considerable margin, of course. It's clear that when blasts happened between stations, they were initially reported as a separate blast at each station. Similarly, 3 people reporting the one bus were all counted individually.
The important thing here is that in exaggerating the story, the news outlets created more panic and hype - completing the job the terrorists started.
A more measured approach, reporting only known facts and not falling into the trap of needing to fill airtime with speculation, fuelling the sense of alarm, would actually serve to reinforce the message that we will not allow terrorists to defeat us.
Looking across the office now, Sky news is still showing a big red NEWSFLASH graphic, and endlessly repeating grainy, out of focus video footage and interviews with shocked victims. Again, all of this serves the terrorists, and not the public good.
posted by Anonymous at
Thursday, July 07, 2005
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