Saturday 12th July

In the week in which the Palestinians and Isrealis are slinging rockets at each other with reckless abandon, while in Iraq Isis is still threatening the integrity of the whole country, while in Ukraine nothing has really been resolved and people are still dying, while we have discovered that the entire Establshment  has been involved in a monumental cover-up– the news headlines are that the NHS is going to be doing more gastric band operations and the Government sold off Royal Mail too cheaply.  What is the matter with the News Editors.  Do they think we are completely stupid, and need a new story every day.  Both of the above “Headlines” are not headlines at all.  They are simply reserve stories, pre-recorded and written and ready to be wheeled out when the real news gets too grisly, too depressing, too important even.

The strapline “Breaking News” is almost always a lie.  It is simply a précis of yesterday’s events, not something just coming through the news-wires.  The most important person is the News Editor, the person who decides exactly what is the News.  The TV news is usually led by the papers, papers which fewer and fewer people are actually buying.  The Press feeds off the TV news and the TV news feeds off the triviality of the Press.

And we just swallow it all, watching the news and yet most of us wouldn’t be able to remember what the items were as soon as the programme is finished.  The news has just become another soap.