The Lemon Fool

---Preceding programme ends

---Cuts to the newsreader..."The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown". "Join us shortly."

---A bunch of tedious adverts

---News programme starts. "Coming up (bong) "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown (Bong). Brexit talks are going to the wire (bong)"

---The main program finally starts

---Newsreader.... "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"
---Newsreader...... "Let's go to our reporter Joe Bloggs in Little Widdle on the Marsh. Joe, so the PM is saying that he cannot rule out another lockdown?"
---Joe Bloggs...... "That's right, I spoke to the PM earlier and he said that he cannot rule out another lockdown". Cuts to a snip of the PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"

Me.... throws brick and sundry insults at the telly

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:---Preceding programme ends

---Cuts to the newsreader..."The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown". "Join us shortly."

---A bunch of tedious adverts

---News programme starts. "Coming up (bong) "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown (Bong). Brexit talks are going to the wire (bong)"

---The main program finally starts

---Newsreader.... "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"
---Newsreader...... "Let's go to our reporter Joe Bloggs in Little Widdle on the Marsh. Joe, so the PM is saying that he cannot rule out another lockdown?"
---Joe Bloggs...... "That's right, I spoke to the PM earlier and he said that he cannot rule out another lockdown". Cuts to a snip of the PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"

Me.... throws brick and sundry insults at the telly

--kiloran

May I clarify please ... is the PM saying we may have another lockdown?

AiY

I gave up watching the news years ago (not having a TV helps)
I just check the BBC website occasionally, when i can be bothered.
I'm sick of COVID, and sick of Brexit. I didn't vote for either

AleisterCrowley wrote:I gave up watching the news years ago (not having a TV helps)

Ah, but when you're old and grey and decrepit like me, it'll be the highlight of your day

--kiloran

AleisterCrowley wrote:I gave up watching the news years ago (not having a TV helps)
I just check the BBC website occasionally, when i can be bothered.
I'm sick of COVID, and sick of Brexit. I didn't vote for either

Indeedie.

If we'd voted covid in 2016, we'd have had another election to change our minds by now. Or at worst sometime next year.

Though whether we'd be presented with any better alternative is not at all certain.

We've got a planetary alignment on the 21st

Second Coming? Alien Invasion?

Watch this space.

AleisterCrowley wrote:We've got a planetary alignment on the 21st

Second Coming? Alien Invasion?

Watch this space.

Relax. Mike Pence has had his covid jab. He can't be expecting the rapture any time soon.

BJ

kiloran wrote:---Preceding programme ends

---Cuts to the newsreader..."The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown". "Join us shortly."

---A bunch of tedious adverts

---News programme starts. "Coming up (bong) "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown (Bong). Brexit talks are going to the wire (bong)"

---The main program finally starts

---Newsreader.... "The PM says he cannot rule out another lockdown", followed by a quick snip of PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"
---Newsreader...... "Let's go to our reporter Joe Bloggs in Little Widdle on the Marsh. Joe, so the PM is saying that he cannot rule out another lockdown?"
---Joe Bloggs...... "That's right, I spoke to the PM earlier and he said that he cannot rule out another lockdown". Cuts to a snip of the PM saying "I can't rule out another lockdown"

Me.... throws brick and sundry insults at the telly

--kiloran

This reminds me of my frustration on occasionally following those links one receives on the phone. Some interesting looking headline on a website which you go to - it goes on and on through various sub links repeating the same broad message and it feels like being trapped in a maze. In the end, I give up and am none the wiser for all the effort.

Arb.

AleisterCrowley wrote:I gave up watching the news years ago (not having a TV helps)
I just check the BBC website occasionally, when i can be bothered.
I'm sick of COVID, and sick of Brexit. I didn't vote for either

But the US election did liven things up. There were then three items instead just two.

Not actually to do with The News, but much the same kind of thing:

Interviewer: May I just ask you.... ?

Interviewee: My answer to that is... XXX.

Interviewer: So what you are saying then is... XXX?

Interviewee: Indeed! That is what I am saying. ("I just said it, didn't I?")


Reminds me. The ONLY time I saw an interviewee react to this kind of thing was long ago on Newsnight. An ex NI hard-man (UDA?) was being interviewed. He answered a question, the response was the usual: "So what you are trying to say is..."

He wasn't having it! "I'm not TRYING to say it, I AM saying it! I can speak the Queen's English you know." I cheered!

I seem to recall it was Harold MacMillan's advice that when you give a speech, you first tell them what you are going to say, then you say it, then you tell them what you have said.

The interviewing technique that bugs me goes -

this thing happened to you, you must feel xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx - how do you feel?

Leaving the interviewee virtually nothing to say. To some extent I can understand it where the interviewee is a 'member of the public' who might be struck dumb because they are on the telly, but they seem to do to everybody.

Gersemi wrote:The interviewing technique that bugs me goes -

this thing happened to you, you must feel xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx - how do you feel?

Leaving the interviewee virtually nothing to say. To some extent I can understand it where the interviewee is a 'member of the public' who might be struck dumb because they are on the telly, but they seem to do to everybody.

The interviewing technique that bugs me is the one where they ask a question and the interviewee embarks on a serious, thoughtful and interesting answer. Then just as they are getting to their final point the interviewer butts in with a new question, so we never get to hear what they were going to say. Common on R4 and has me shouting at the radio and even turning it off. They seem to do it especially to medical staff who always try to explain things fully.

scrumpyjack wrote:I seem to recall it was Harold MacMillan's advice that when you give a speech, you first tell them what you are going to say, then you say it, then you tell them what you have said.

Yep, that's what they taught us at teacher training college. It works, too. And not just on speeches.

BJ

XFool wrote:Not actually to do with The News, but much the same kind of thing:

Interviewer: May I just ask you.... ?

Interviewee: My answer to that is... XXX.

Interviewer: So what you are saying then is... XXX?

Interviewee: Indeed! That is what I am saying. ("I just said it, didn't I?")


Reminds me. The ONLY time I saw an interviewee react to this kind of thing was long ago on Newsnight. An ex NI hard-man (UDA?) was being interviewed. He answered a question, the response was the usual: "So what you are trying to say is..."

He wasn't having it! "I'm not TRYING to say it, I AM saying it! I can speak the Queen's English you know." I cheered!

Well, this has a hollow ring to me. The reason interviewers repeat questions is that politicians do not answer them in the first place. They are experts at sliding off the point, usually in order to make some point of their own which they've been briefed to do beforehand.

What a contrast with the medics and other scientific types who for the most part answer questions in a concise and calm way. A pleasure to listen to them, rather than the frustration most of us feel with politicians. I doubt you will find many interviewers having to ask the same question in different ways to scientists unless it is to clarify technical language.

Gersemi wrote:The interviewing technique that bugs me goes -

this thing happened to you, you must feel xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx - how do you feel?

Leaving the interviewee virtually nothing to say. To some extent I can understand it where the interviewee is a 'member of the public' who might be struck dumb because they are on the telly, but they seem to do to everybody.

One of my least favourite questions! "How to do feel about it" or "How much do you regret..."? Just impossible to answer without resort to cliches, so why bother to ask?

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:One of my least favourite questions! "How to do feel about it" or "How much do you regret..."? Just impossible to answer without resort to cliches, so why bother to ask?

It's ingrained. Every trainee newspaper journalist gets put through the doorstep death routine, where they have to visit somebody's grieving spouse and ask them how they feel? It toughens them up, although it doesn't do anybody else any good. But by the time they're on the TV news they really should have lost the habit.

I'll make an exception for Laura Kuenssberg, though. She made a nice job yesterday of asking Boris Johnson how much he regretted having called a christmas day cancellation "inhuman" on Wednesday, but "essential" on Saturday. Even though he'd been given all the warnings a week previously? She just hangs her jaw out to one side, in that way that she does, and she comes straight out with the direct challenges, no messing. You can just feel how afraid Boris is of her. It's right there in his eyes. Good work.

BJ

One of the best interviews I saw was at a public meeting about a proposed by-pass. The interviewer asked a question to which the person being interviewed gave a straightforward answer, the interviewer then tried to turn his answer around to get him to say something different, this went on over several questions. After the person being interviewed gave his answer in a straightforward manner and off the interviewer went, again at a tangent, the person being interviewed just sat ther,e sat there and sat there. When the interviewer finally drew breathe and said aren't you going to answer my question the reply was "well you seemed to be enjoying the sound of your own voice so much I thought it impolite to interrupt". Rousing cheers from the audience.

R6

bungeejumper wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:One of my least favourite questions! "How to do feel about it" or "How much do you regret..."? Just impossible to answer without resort to cliches, so why bother to ask?

It's ingrained. Every trainee newspaper journalist gets put through the doorstep death routine, where they have to visit somebody's grieving spouse and ask them how they feel? It toughens them up, although it doesn't do anybody else any good. But by the time they're on the TV news they really should have lost the habit.

I'll make an exception for Laura Kuenssberg, though. She made a nice job yesterday of asking Boris Johnson how much he regretted having called a christmas day cancellation "inhuman" on Wednesday, but "essential" on Saturday. Even though he'd been given all the warnings a week previously? She just hangs her jaw out to one side, in that way that she does, and she comes straight out with the direct challenges, no messing. You can just feel how afraid Boris is of her. It's right there in his eyes. Good work.

BJ

I'm an absolute fan of Laura, and of Katya Adler who always talks in decent sentences and explains exactly what she thinks is going on. Both very bright women, good to listen to and well informed.

As regards to the "how much" question, my reaction is to wonder what the SI unit is. How much will you miss being on Strictly? er , 100 kgs? 500 units of alcohol? There's no answer, except the cliches.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:

XFool wrote:Not actually to do with The News, but much the same kind of thing:

Interviewer: May I just ask you.... ?

Interviewee: My answer to that is... XXX.

Interviewer: So what you are saying then is... XXX?

Interviewee: Indeed! That is what I am saying. ("I just said it, didn't I?")


Reminds me. The ONLY time I saw an interviewee react to this kind of thing was long ago on Newsnight. An ex NI hard-man (UDA?) was being interviewed. He answered a question, the response was the usual: "So what you are trying to say is..."

He wasn't having it! "I'm not TRYING to say it, I AM saying it! I can speak the Queen's English you know." I cheered!

Well, this has a hollow ring to me. The reason interviewers repeat questions is that politicians do not answer them in the first place. They are experts at sliding off the point, usually in order to make some point of their own which they've been briefed to do beforehand.

My recollection is this was the kind of "politician" who made his point by turning up at your house and knee-capping you (or worse). So I don't think that really applies here.