It is Never too Early to Speculate

I looked at the BBC news website the other day, as I frequently do, and much to my horror read some NEWS. This came as a shock to me. Firstly, I am not used to finding news on news website, newspapers or on the television any more. Secondly, I was about to write a blog about news being dominated by non-news, so that was one good theory blown out of the water.

But I am not so easily intimidated and will certainly not allow a few inconvenient facts stand in the way of a perfectly good blog.

The news is, in theory, about what has happened. BBC televised 24 hours is generally good at this. That is, apart from the eye strain from flicking from one news presenter to another, while they have a cosy dinner table chat with me. (How they know which one is supposed to be speaking?)

Newspapers and news website…..well, let’s take a quick trip through some non-news themes.

My favourite non-news is what is going to happen today. “Today, the Government will announce that …….” I thought that this should be tomorrow’s news (and it probably will be, as well, allowing the publisher two bites at the “News cherry”). “Capello will tomorrow announce the England team.” is news. He will do so tomorrow and we have to wait. Sorry, but there it is. In non-news speak, it should say “Tomorrow, Capello will announce the following team ……” telling us, by the way, as well who he will choose as goalkeeper. That would puzzle everyone.

A further problem for the BBC 24 Hours news is filling the gaps on a piece of real Breaking News. This is managed with speculation-news. “If this crime proves to be work of terrorists / aliens / frogs ….etc, what would this mean for global security / U.S._ Mars relationships, funding of frog spawning colonies. The possibilities are endless.

I have a theory, that in the same way that football commentators have cards on which they write meaningless statistics about footballers, which they can use when nothing much is happening, news readers have a list of speculation questions “If ABC proves to be the case, what would this mean for XYZ?”, to keep the excitement going.

Answers to speculation questions are always answered with “Yes – well, Susan, it is really to early speculate, but …..” and then proceed to speculate, “If it does prove to be the case that David Cameron is really Robert Maxwell in disguise, then ……..”

Actually, it is never too early to speculate.

By the way, if you have reached this far, the news that I read was that President Sarkozy arrived in London to mark the de Gaulle broadcasts.