TRUTH? I have a considerable amount of respect for BBC News. I find the relevance of this video to be on-point, because of the embedded message that is implied.
The sole purpose of the news media should be to serve as a voice of the people (and the role of the anchor is to deliver the story). You, the consumer, are required to discern the messages in the story. For that reason, it makes perfect sense that the messenger should remain silent.
Naturally, the video has many interpretations, (e.g. the anchors are silent because they do not deliver the actual news, or conversely there is no news to deliver), and the video itself is actually meant to be humorous — there is, however, always another interpretation.
What constitutes news in this country is really infotainment (i.e. tabloid-flavored entertainment presented as news). To complicate the issue even more, our massive media consumption is done through skimming — which potentially makes us stupid.
The power of this video is the message between the scanlines. If you consider your own news media consumption, you will discover, as I have, that breaking news is merely broken news.
Marinate.
I like this take even though its take on the silence is a little less ambiguous.
George, I saw that earlier today via a link from GOOD Magazine, and then caught the version I posted (based on the link provided on Flickr). It is getting a lot of exposure today. It too, is really good.
Imagine if social media took this approach. For a day, we don’t really tweet anything. There’s no status to update.
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Oh, stop the Marxist drivel, please. There’s no such thing as “the People” dear God, are you still back in the dusty library with Karl in the 19th century?!
Media does best when it isn’t forcibly ascribed roles, when it isn’t told “it has a purpose” or “it must serve as the Voice of the People”.
That’s because people will disagree what that means, what the emphasis should be, WHICH people, and that’s politics, and that’s ok, but then it begins to tilt and taint the media.
Objective news reporting isn’t the hopelessly subjective imperialist blah-blah that you imagine. Obviously your blog doesn’t serve as “the Voice of the People” and even a multiplicity of Voices of Blogs don’t make up the public interest.
It’s ok to skim. There’s a lot of stuff. A lot of it is irrelevant. BBC is pretty much accurate.
Breaking news isn’t broken; advertising is broken. People are broken. Technology isn’t perfect. News is news. There’s too much of it in the global village to consume rationally. Do what you can.
interesting vid. i was surprised they kept it going for so long. 2 mins of television is VERY expensive to pay for. wonder how the advertisers felt?
I’d like to see this form of news media mute in the 48 hours prior to an election. just everybody shut up and let folks vote. or better yet, during the actual voting. Those six hours when they’re waiting for the results are the most empty hours of news on television.
just yapping talking idiotic heads
Me volia…
I guess everyone miss the words Random Bollox at then end. Very funny indeed…