The BBC was flush with correspondents at the inauguration of President Obama – but why didn’t they let the people speak?
The Ten O’Clock News had Gavin Ewart telling me about a parade without showing it – then back to Huw to burble on for another couple of minutes before handing to Clive Myrie who also talked all over the pictures.
Then on the Newsnight Special we had the generally excellent Matthew Price talking over some picture of people celebrating in Alabama – he kept telling us what various people had said, without letting us from ANY of them speak for themselves.
Here we had an event of great spectacle, that was all about what American people felt and what they said. And yet BBC News thought that we wanted to hear from Mat Frei and Justin Webb – both outstanding correspondents, but on this day I really wanted to see and hear from the President and his people.
It’s not surprising that people are getting bored with networked news. By far the best piece all day was on the BBC 2 Culture show which simply let the people of Harlem speak for themselves without commentary and without a reporter.
My sentiments exactly! Even the live coverage seemed to be a relay race between correspondents, peppered with the occasional 15 second vox. Some of the analysis was excellent but I wanted to hear more about the ordinary people who made the journey to DC in their own words. Instead we got moments of correspondents talking to each other about how ‘one person said they ate oatmeal this morning, because they knew it would be cold’ – which just sounded bizarre (!)
PS- Hi Charlie, how are you?