I think our once beloved BBC has forgotten that we can read as well as watch videos.
It's unfortunate that so many "articles" now on the website are 'view only'.
I haven't viewed this item so cannot comment on it directly. But in principle I don't want to view some patronising introduction and listen to waffle.
I want an article with words (remember them ?) that I can skim read and linger a bit if I want to.
Rant over
|
A bit unfair. The BBC is a broadcasting organisation and it is natural that its online content is going to be mainly video based. If you want written content you need to subscribe to a newspaper. Plenty of them available.
|
" it is natural that its online content is going to be mainly video based."
Well yes, I understand your point very well, but - not long ago, much of the BBC web pages were 'heavy' on the written word. Please take a look at some older pages. A year or two back they made an announcement that video was going to be more prominent so they could reach a 'more modern audience'; a dumber one perhaps.
As an aside, the serious documentaries have all gone from BBC TV too - for example Panorama is a pale imitation of what it used to be in terms of depth. But hey we've got the One Show now, so all is well. Thank goodness for BBC4 - shame there are so many repeats though.
" If you want written content you need to subscribe to a newspaper. Plenty of them available. "
I do - two of them behind a paywall and the free Guardian website too, so I reckon I get a pretty good balance.
|
>> What Duncan says.
>>
I didn't say anything!
Honest!
|
I don't think Duncan said anything :-)
You have to take into account that one of the faults of the BBC according to its detractors was that it was straying from its core function of broadcaster and moving too far into the realms of newspapers and thus undermining their commercial viability.
One of the results of this is for the BBC to remove much of its written content. Personally I generally prefer to reAd rather than watch but I think we have to accept that for the written word we will have to go elsewhere than the BBC
|
>> " If you want written content you need to subscribe to a newspaper. Plenty of
>> them available. "
>>
>> I do - two of them behind a paywall and the free Guardian website too,
>> so I reckon I get a pretty good balance.
Newsapapers aren't what they used to be either. 20+ years ago I admired the Telegraph for the breadth and depth of its factual reporting. I no longer regard it as worth reading.
Of course there's a reason for this, not unrelated to the internet. Falling sales, falling advertising income, mean that they couldn't employ 400 journalists any more even if they wanted to.
I have the 'i' on subscription, which although on new ownership still takes content from the now online-only Independent. It gives me the headlines, the crossword is OK, and it doesn't insult my intelligence too much, but I wonder how long it can last. I don't mind the Guardian (except for its relentlessly selective approach to any Brexit-related stories) and that's about it.
At the recent Records and Rebels exhibition at the V&A there was a on display the front page report of the Profumo affair in the Daily Mirror. A beautifully written piece, no hyperbole, not a spare word, instantly comprehensible - a model piece far less sloppily written than almost anything I see now. It really surprised me, particularly as the Mirror wa
s always said to be written for a reading age of 12. Yes I know I'm going back a bit...
|
There's some value in looking further afield than many of the British press websites if you want online written articles of any worth, these days.
There are the obvious candidates of the American press (two or three anyway), but just as an example, I thought the reporting of the Westminster incident on the Japan Times site was a good piece of balanced work.
tinyurl.com/l8l6n9n
|
>>It seems like a win win good news item ?
Not sure if other nearby small traders like it ?
A bit like independent coffee outlets near Waitrose ?
|
" You have to take into account that one of the faults of the BBC according to its detractors was that it was straying from its core function of broadcaster and moving too far into the realms of newspapers and thus undermining their commercial viability.
One of the results of this is for the BBC to remove much of its written content."
How very right you are. I had completely forgotten about that issue, which I probably agreed with at the time ! The memory can become deceptively selective.
I take it all back - about the website anyway.
|
Could this be Britain's cheapest supermarket? - Dulwich Estate II
