News Coverage UK Prime Minister & Government Resignations

[Torpido]

Did talk tv really have 5 hours of piers Morgan

[i.h]

As for 5G standalone networks, they have been used here

Not beyond trials as far as I am aware. So while the EE 5G showcase stuff at Wembley might have used it, unlikely that your average OB camera has access to it.

[AJB39]

It’s nearly 12 hours since Chris Mason broke the news of Boris Johnson’s resignation. I do think it’s time now for the BBC News Channel to drop the Breaking News strap.

[thegeek]

interesting. I had Sky on for much of the day and there were a couple of times where it dropped out to a LiveU splash screen. I know that stuff can also work over non-mobile connections but it would imply that they might not have been wired?

I spotted a few occasions on the live shot of the door when it went a bit macroblocky - similar to how a LiveU or WMT goes when it takes a bit of a bandwidth hit. Perhaps it's possible that some of the feeds from Downing Street were IP based, while others were fibre -based.

[Ash101]

Did talk tv really have 5 hours of piers Morgan

Yes - he mainly anchored the coverage from his studio. Although there were a few 20 minute gaps where Tom Newton Dunn went to and came back from a break on college green.

[Steve]

Whilst I’m not sure I agree that the number 6 constitutes a “flagship brand”, I don’t think people watching around the world believe that BBC World News only exists in some sort of timeless dimension. I’m pretty sure they understand that a British-based channel might occasionally mention what time it is in the UK.

Come on now Phil, it’s not just any old 6 it’s a 6 in Reith…

[Andrew]

More vox pops!

Earlier we had Doncaster and somewhere in Surrey, tonight it’s Macclesfield. Look North is also leading on vox pops undertaken in our region.

No surprise two people are glad he’s gone, two people wish he had stayed.

It’s silly now that it’s compulsory they have to appear in every single bulletin every single day

[Rolling News]

More vox pops!

Earlier we had Doncaster and somewhere in Surrey, tonight it’s Macclesfield. Look North is also leading on vox pops undertaken in our region.

No surprise two people are glad he’s gone, two people wish he had stayed.

It’s silly now that it’s compulsory they have to appear in every single bulletin every single day

I bet most of the people they ask in these vox pops are just more interested in getting their faces on the telly.

[DTV]

More vox pops!

Earlier we had Doncaster and somewhere in Surrey, tonight it’s Macclesfield. Look North is also leading on vox pops undertaken in our region.

No surprise two people are glad he’s gone, two people wish he had stayed.

It’s silly now that it’s compulsory they have to appear in every single bulletin every single day

Especially because, as I was saying yesterday, false balance in vox pops like these is simply a deliberate distortion of public opinion that shouldn't be allowed. We have weighted nationally-representative polls on this issue that clearly state that public opinion is fairly unanimous. If broadcasters want to report what the public think, that is what they should be reporting. It is frankly ridiculous that the BBC heavily restricts use of opinion polls - a rigorous, scientific way of measuring public opinion - and yet gives their journalists free rein to just create alternative realities where the public are evenly split on every contentious issue.

[Newshound47]

I have been voxpopped before for BBC London news. I didn’t even know they were going to using the answer until someone told me they saw me on TV. And that was a less Controversial issue than national politics. I wouldn’t answer a politics one.

[DavidWhitfield]

Surely by showing people with differing opinions, you're just showing different sides of the story, ensuring that no matter how the viewer feels about the issue, they get to experience someone giving an opposing view, possibly allowing them to better understand others' feelings on the matter. Even if 99% of people think A while the remaining 1% of people think B, you can't just broadcast that A is true, show people stating A and A only, and ignore that (admittedly a smaller proportion of) others feel B entirely. I think showing a range of opinions is a good thing.

[XIII]

How I've managed to never get vox popped is quite a feat, I've always wanted to do at least one

[DTV]

Surely by showing people with differing opinions, you're just showing different sides of the story, ensuring that no matter how the viewer feels about the issue, they get to experience someone giving an opposing view, possibly allowing them to better understand others' feelings on the matter. Even if 99% of people think A while the remaining 1% of people think B, you can't just broadcast that A is true, show people stating A and A only, and ignore that (admittedly a smaller proportion of) others feel B entirely. I think showing a range of opinions is a good thing.

But different views on the story are given adequate coverage by party political figures - typically before vox pops are used. Once you are getting the public involved, you are implying to the audience that this is what the public think - in fact vox pops are frequently prefixed with 'we asked the public' phrases. But it isn't what the public think because it isn't representative and is frequently edited to give the desired false balance. It is a misreporting of what the public thinks, the viewer can come away with the impression that the public are evenly split on a matter that they aren't - especially considering no attempt is made to report polling data that gives an accurate picture.

Also you can just not broadcast a view because of only a small number of people thinking something, it happens all the time. Within the study of public opinion there is something jokingly referred to as 'the lizardman constant' - about 7-8% of the public believe, or claim to believe, insane stuff like conspiracy theories. If broadcasters stuck to your 1% threshold, vox pops would be a lot more interesting. Now, of course, not all views that aren't broadcast are insane or dangerous, but at a certain point of low support - especially with a sample size as low as in a vox pop - you are actively giving a false impression of what the public thinks by including it.

[London Lite]

If anyone watched the live edition of Question Time on iPlayer this evening, it was interesting to see how much is cut from the late evening edit. There were audience members of various opinions in Barnsley, some of which wouldn't have made the final cut shown on BBC One purely for time constraints.

From a pres point of view, you also got to see Fiona asking audience members to say their point again as mics weren't in position and asking the panellists to wait to reply.

[Newshound47]

I imagine the short notice if the decision to stream live meant they was no time to adjust to being more slick on air. If the live stream became regular I imagine they would not be so many production errors as described above.