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Friday, 29 January 2010

News reporting for dummies

Ever noticed how formulaic news reporting is? From the ‘walking through a busy crowd and talking with your hands’ to ‘random headless obese people’ shots, Charlie Brooker shows how the news is made. It’s scarily accurate.

YouTube Preview Image

14 Comments

  1. Peter Cox
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:11 pm | Permalink

    What video? When I clicked on the link from both the email & the website, a blank appeared surrounded by information about the vanished video.

  2. Graham Green
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

    I can’t see a thing

  3. Kevin Murray
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

    Nothing here.

  4. Gerard Yates
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:22 pm | Permalink

    Silent, still reporting -how rereshing!

  5. Matt Baxter
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:23 pm | Permalink

    Somebody needs a video on ‘how to embed and video’

  6. Amber Jamieson
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:25 pm | Permalink

    Apologies, we forgot to put the video in once we published! It’s there now. And hilarious.

  7. Crispy
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:33 pm | Permalink

    I’m sure this wouldn’t happen on an iPad! Actually, the vid worked well for me, but it did ask me to log in first.

    I worked in a newsroom in the 80s and did get to write stories, despite zero training as a journalist. What I had done at uni was write parody for revues, and that’s what I used to do news stories. Just write the formula, take the piss, and then pull it back a bit.

  8. Pat Miller
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 2:38 pm | Permalink

    I completed my journalism degree in 1992. Not a thing has changed. This is the powerpoint version of news. It’s mind numbingly boring and often inaccurate.

  9. Dr Strangelove
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 3:29 pm | Permalink

    He forgot the ubiquitous academic reading through a book or handing a file to their secretary!

  10. Mike Jones
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 3:51 pm | Permalink

    More nodding and thoughtful looking into the middle ground.

    And raising of eyebrows like punctuation not quite as emphatic as an exclamation

  11. Mike Jones
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 3:52 pm | Permalink

    And a questioning cross to the weatherman who is always called Mike or Graham (even if he’s a girl…. Graham ?

  12. atomou
    Posted Friday, 29 January 2010 at 6:11 pm | Permalink

    Ze girls are called Mikey and Grahamee.
    This report forgot to show the ubiquitous beach shot with all the bikini girls being oiled by more bikini girls…

  13. Gordon O'Donnell
    Posted Saturday, 30 January 2010 at 10:51 am | Permalink

    Hiliarous stuff. Nothing like taking the mick

  14. atomou
    Posted Sunday, 31 January 2010 at 4:37 pm | Permalink

    Taking the mick and doing what with it? Can you sing young Gordon? Can you play the bagpipes? Squeeze box? Harp? Lyre?
    I can dance the lambago… ouch!