Decent, but with room for improvement (BBC News 24)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	BBC News 24
Date:	04/08/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: professional presentation, some good political analysis

Disadvantages: Frequent overkill on some topics, overly focused on celebrity

BBC news 24 delivers rolling news 24 hours a day and exudes professionalism, with some excellent presenters, in particular Matthew Amroliwara who, despite looking and acting a little bit like an android, speaks in an extremely intelligent and professional manner and is particularly good at interviewing politicians and the like, as his Paxman-like interviewing technique is both insightful and rigorous, evidencing a refusal to accept indirect or misguiding responses and resulting in interviews that are both informative and often very entertaining to watch. Chief Political Editor Nick Robinson is another excellent journalist who balances his reports with a mix of humour, wit and sharp intellect.

Much of the channel's coverage is very good, although I do sometimes feel that reports are not always as balanced as they could be. They also fall into the trap of giving saturation coverage on stories that are of little to no consequence, largely ignoring more important international stories as a result. For example, Jade Goodie's death was covered in microscopic detail, and whilst clearly a very sad event it certainly isn't one that was worthy of wall-to-wall coverage complete with televised vigils outside her home as she lay on her deathbed. Similarly, Michael Jackson's death and the ongoing saga of the Mcann family, whilst newsworthy events, were covered for so long and in such invasive and overly voyeuristic detail that the whole experience was rather sickening. (For an excellent insight into modern news, including BBC News 24, I recommend you watch Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, series 4, episode 3, which is available on youtube and takes a rational and alternately funny and very sobering look at all that is wrong with today's mainstream news services).

Overall then, despite its tendency to dance along merrily to whatever frenzied tune happens to be playing in the Media Circus Big Top at the time, BBC News 24 is a pretty decent news service, but one that is best taken in conjunction with other services such as the frequently impressive Channel 4 News.

Summary: A decent news service but not without its faults