War coverage

DMC

I'm surprised that there has not been a thread on the coverage of the war on the news channels on satellite TV, so here goes.

Sky News seems to be covering it very well, if a little too much. They have not reported a single home news story since the way started. Even Sky News Active has very little coverage of domestic news. Jeremy Thompson is in his element with the troops, and I have a lot of time for Simon McCoy, now anchoring from Kuwait.

News 24, of what I have seen, are doing more bulletins of domestic news, when the chance occurs. Not bad.

CNN, doing what it does, its ok, but not for long spells.

ITV News channel, turgid stuff, tbh. Only tuned in once to see the official announcement of Terry Lloyd's death by ITN.

Fox News, gung-ho, nuff said.

CNBC has been fleeting in and out of MSNBC, and of the US networks, IMO, it seems to be the best of the US stations available to us. Far better than normal CNBC!!

A light hearted point to finish with, I wonder what the Sky News sports reporters and weather people are doing at the moment!

watty

Sky seems to report a lot of US / Brit Mil Press releases as "Fact". BBC World TV seems more circumspect at taking them at face value.

I have reverted to radio to get a wider balance of News, not just "The War".
(Turkish Eng Service, BBC World Service, Live 95 FM Limerick, RTE Radio1.)

DW TV english service TV (Germany) seems one of the few Satellite news channels still reporting non War material.

Oh, and "Al Alam" TV, which is 100% Arabic, but has an English "ticker" scrolling".

Nile TV (Egyptian English/French/Arabic/Hebrew Int. Service) is VERY boring carrying mostly Al Jazzera, CNN and Abu Dhabi feeds.

Syrian TV "looks" interesting, but since it is all Arabic, I have no idea.

Arriang TV (S. Korean English Service) seems oblivious.

Israel's IBA Arabic Service is just running the same Soaps as usual. I have been unable to receive Kol Israel English service on SW and no Israeli other than the Arabic channel seems to be available here.

Iran on IRIB1 and IRIB2 seems unchanged (occasional Engilish subtitles or voice overs on its basically Persian Language services... Never call an Iranian and Arab..

Sudan, AbuDhabi, Jordan, Al Jazzera lots of coverage, but all Arabic. Not much on Libya.

TV5 lot of extra coverage, also on France 5 (formerly La Cinquieme)..

The 12 or Itallian seem much as normal, There is dedicated RAI News 24, which is , er Italian.
The Italian equivent of Fox / Sky is Stream News. It even looks like Fox TV...

Yes I can channel flick through 30 channels all showing the same US press conference, with no real information of substance.

Conclusion: A lot of channels showing 24 hrs pics of Tanks, Bagdad via night vision, deserts etc, but enough "real" news every 24hrs to fit in a 2minute item in a regular news report.


Wake me up when the US are occupying...
(Yes they will technically win, by having Taks & planes that work and Iraqi having none, but since Blair can't run the Falls Road in Belfast and Bush still doesn't control Afganistan, Colombia Durg problem, Mexican Immigrants etc ....

And in their spare time they are going to solve the Israel / Palestinian problem!)

jez

Radio 5 Live is providing excellent unbiased war coverage.
The nightly "Sport on Five with Ian Payne" which I listen to religiously has now become a combination of War and Sport.
They have excellent interviews with Iraqi people in the UK plus plenty of reporting from the battlefield as well as keeping us up to date with sport and plenty of other news. Well worth a listen at any time.

watty

Need FTV card for that.. Or Static after nightfall. (Limerick).

:-) Religiously???

On Kneeses facing Mecca?

DMC

In the car or at home, 5 Live is on all the time for me. The only problems are before noon. Victoria Derbyshire and Nicky Campbell are at each others throats... "When Egos Collide" should appear on Bravo soon, (there was a major falling out on air Friday morning, over an interview with the British home secratery, Campbell was supposed to be not very complimentary to Ms. Derbyshire, reducing her to tears, and leaving a bulletin half way through. More here!) And Fi Glover is too lightweight on the mid-morning show, she's been found out.

Up All Night is yer only man.

Actually, i've found to my surprise that the Bejing based CCCTv 9 ( after ITV news on the epg, I think ) has been doing a good job, albeit with the occasional Mao-ist spin on events.

They take CNN coverage of all the press conferences with all the onscreen CNN stuff taken off.
What was very interesting the other day was an interview with a chinese military person analyising, the coalition forces battle plans.
I was also quite surprised how balanced they are in terms of using U.S business people and lawyers to give analysis.
Methinks the domestic version of this channel may be a tad different!!!
mm

jmcbride

I think it's a bit unfair to say that Fi Glover has been "found out". She was probably at her best in the afternoon slot that Simon Mayo now has, and was also quite good on the 10pm show. I don't listen to the 9am show that often, but given that it seemed to be a kind of ranters forum when Nicky Campbell was in charge, maybe it's not best suited to her particular skills.

On the broader question of who's providing the best war coverage, News24 has been my preferred option for rolling news. MSNBC is by far the best American broadcaster. Once you learn to ignore the self-congratulations that seem to accompany every report, the news content is excellent.

DMC

K, a radio debate on the Satellite forum.....

I've never been a fan of Fi's, she was ok on the afternoon show, the late show suited her to a tee, but they are relaxed shows for her style compared to hard news agendas of the breakfast show or the phone-in. I remember her on the Weekend Breakfast about 5 years ago, and she was hopeless. "Sunday Service" was made to make her the supergirl of 5 Live, but that was a terrible show.

As bad as Campbell was on the phone-in, it was a lot more listenable than to Fi's current show.

I hope 5 Live have a good clear out. The only ones who should survive are Peter Allen, Alan Robb, Jane Garvey, Ian Payne (sport only, nothing else) and promote Richard Evans to the phone-in and bring back Julian Worricker full time.

CHRIS GREER

On the subject of war coverage as a whole- and before I begin, may I apologize in advance to anybody who may be offended- I think there's been WAAAAAAY too much. 5 Live may be getting praise, but unfortunately,in my view anyway, this station's new slogan seems to be "The War, The Whole War and Nothing but The War" because, whatever time you tune in, day or night, it'll be there. In fact, on Friday night, I let out an ironic cheer when 90 seconds passed without The War being mentioned. Anyone have any ideas why they (the BBC) think British-and Irish-people (except people with loved ones in the Forces) are as obsessed with events however many hundreds/thousands miles away Iraq is as they (BBC) are?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

byte

Sky News is pretty good considering they've dropped all advertising breaks.

EuroNews is very worthy of a mention and am surprised that nobody has mentioned it. Especially like the No Comment segments.

Of the others I'd watch MSNBC on CNBC, BBC World and CNN.

chernobyl

Reuters.

jmcbride

Does anyone here take Fox News seriously? Personally, I've never been able to take much more than a couple of minutes at a time. I just can't stand the way the editorial line runs through everything they do. I tried watching Fox and Friends a couple of weeks ago, but not long after I switched over, they started talking about France, and instantly began to look as they were sucking lemons, so disgusted were they by the thought. I can take that kind of attitude from guests, but not from the hosts.

Back on the subject of R5, I agree with DMC to a very large extent about clearing out the line up, although I would also bring back David McNeil and Diana Madill, who I think was the original 9am presenter.

edited to tidy up the grammar

BigEejit

I'm with Irishbyte...I reckon that the no comment thing on Euronews is best ... i.e. make your own mind up ... pretty unbiased ... as for FOX ... good god almighty - they are as biased as you are going to get .. absolute crap, any country that disagrees with the Americans (particularly the french) get a going over ... they rarely if ever mention Germany though. But I was talking to my brother who is in New Jersey and he says that a lot of people watch fox and reckon it is great (i.e. they agree with the presenters):rolleyes:

DMC

Wildly OT now.... Old skool jmcbride, I still have a Midday with Mair loyalty card!

I posted on usenet a comparison of how 5 Live used to be when it started and 2 years ago. I'll update this now with today's schedule.....

Lets compare the schedules, then and now and who was the best.....

1994 2001 2003
6 am Breakfast: Garvey/Allen Breakfast: Darbyshire/Worricker Breakfast: Campbell/Darbyshire
Draw between the first two couples, last is utter tripe.

9 am The Magazine: Madill Nicky Campbell Fi Glover
Madill, more variety.

12noon Midday with Mair Midday News Midday News
Mair by a long shot, I still miss the Sportin Letter from Australia, from Stephen Halliday.

2pm Sybil Roscoe Glover/Greening Simon Mayo
Sybil, but marginal

4pm Inverdale Nationwide Drive Drive
Inverdales show was better, but Drive is currently the best daytime show

7pm News Extra Sanderson/McNeill Sport on 5 Sport on 5
I liked that news roundup

Skip the sport.....

10pm News Talk Late Night Live Richard Bannister
LNL was a more consistent programme, Fi was most suited here, but Bannister is OK.

11pm Night Extra " " " "
One hour of Sanderson/McNeill, brilliant

12am After Hours " " " "
Lesson 1. How to have a discussion programme WITHOUT a phone-in,
Vincent Hanna, you died too young.

2am Up All Night Up All Night Up All Night
At least its on an hour earlier!!! Best show on the network, period.
Its minus is that Richard Dallyn has left the BBC, and I think occasionally
freelances for the show, and Dotun Adebayo. Nuff said.

Back to sport, its still the best in the business... and it hasn't got the
turnover of staff the rest of the station has...

How I miss the Five Live of old......

Edit: at last! It looks right!

icdg

Believe it or not I thought ITN's coverage of the war at the start was excellent, on both ITV1 and the ITV News Channel. They seem to have got bored of it on ITV1 now, though the News Channel is keeping up the standard.

BBC News started behind, though has now caught up and surpassed ITN. Can't believe the amount of time it took BBC World to drop its regular programming, it was well into the second day of the war.

Not having Fox, MSNBC is where I'm going for the unadultarated American coverage. No its not as quite as bad as Fox, but biased enough. CNBC Europe are taking it a lot nowadays, they've replaced Power Lunch, Business Centre (for this week) and most CNBC Asia programmes with it. (This week CNBC Europe's schedule is messed up though as the US are still on Winter Time, meaning everything from there is going out an hour late, eg, NYSE closing bell is at 10pm rather than 9pm).

Am disappointed with lack of Irish TV coverage though. We need an RTE rolling news channel, badly. Today FM and Matt Cooper are my radio choice, with Newstalk 106 (which has calmed down after its inital "we have to say our station name at least ten times every minute" phase) and Radio 1 coming behind.

PS on Radio 5, I liked Late Night Live too... and oddly enough Late Night Currie as well.

jmcbride

Truth be told, I have probably watched the ITN/ITV News Channel even less than I've watched Fox News. My first impression of it, when it originally launched, was that it didn't react very well to breaking news. There were times when a news story broke, and Sky News either had live reports from the scene, or carried a press conference live, while ITN (as was) were just running through their standard half hour bulletin, more or less exactly the same as the previous half hour, the same as the next half hour.

Now, I know from reading posts that it has a lot of fans here, so it has obviously improved, and it was certainly a good idea to start simulcasting the main ITV news bulletins. However, my first impression has lasted, so I tend to rank it alongside Euronews, way down my list of preferences.

As for CNN, it has never recovered, for me, from the evolution of the channel into CNN International. Old-style CNN, on Cablelink in the mid to late 80s, and on satellite into the mid-90s, was great. I used to watch it until 3 or 4am during college holidays, from Lou Dobbs Moneyline, through Crossfire and Prime News, until the end of Larry King Live. However, as the US content was replaced with International material, it became less and less interesting. I've switched to it occasionally over the last week or so, but it just seems to be a very slow moving news operation.

And back to the OT Five Live bit - that's a fantastic list of the changing lineup over the years. It reminded me that I woke up specially on the first day at 5am to hear the station begin. Pity I didn't tape it! I used to love News Talk, I think Huw Edwards used to do the politics programme, maybe on a Thursday, and it was great. Vincent Hanna has never been replaced, I think it's safe to say. My changing sleeping patterns mean I don't hear it very often any more, but I used to be a huge Up All Night fan, they had the best US coverage this side of the Atlantic.

As for the comparison between Sybil Roscoe, etc, I would have to go with Fi Glover, as I thought Roscoe was the worst broadcaster on early Five Live (she was eventually surpassed by Edwina Currie, but I digress...). I miss Julian Worricker from the breakfast show, but I miss Peter Allen and Jane Garvey even more, they are definitely the star pair of the station, and I listen to them on the drive home after work every day. Well, I do when they're actually doing the show - Garvey should be back from maternity leave soon, no?

sceptre

Originally posted by jmcbride
There were times when a news story broke, and Sky News either had live reports from the scene, or carried a press conference live, while ITN (as was) were just running through their standard half hour bulletin, more or less exactly the same as the previous half hour, the same as the next half hour.

I gather ITN made the decision that they wouldn't run with unverified stories - hence the situation you mentioned above. Whether you'd consider that a good thing or not is another thing.

Mossy Monk

i've been watching a lot on MSNBC when it's been on

Euronews has been on for quite a bit. i like the No Comment segments as well

i've been avoiding Sky News

ITV News has been good at times

FOX News has been hillarious at times. especially when Bill O' Reilly is gracing the airwaves. their claim of fair and balanced news coverage is comical. nice looking ladies though

News 24 is as dull as dish water for me

CNN i've been watching in bed on my analogue box with CNBC