View Full Version : Does the BBC get it?


TANKERx
19-09-2002, 09:23 PM
I've often wondered who the technology writers are for the BBC. It would seem to me that as far as world events and natural phenomena are concerned, they're pretty dang good, but give them a piece of technology and they start struggling for words.

I don't know where they're comign from. Now, reading their feature on Samsung SGH-T100 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2268270.stm), I'm not at all sure that the people who write their technology articles are doing anything more than obeying the editor who says "write, in 500 words or more, why this phone is cool".

The writer sees this phone as the phone to bring in the punters to advanced features such as colour screens, downloadable games and polyphonic ringtones, suggesting that before this phone, there was nothing available. He shows his ignorance by letting us know that he's never seen an 'Information' option on a Mobile Phone and this one has thrown him.

Yet, the writer seems more impressed by the fact that it looks like something from Captain Kirk's Star Trek (no it doesn't actually) than anything else. He then goes on to comment that the built in games are a 'huge advancement on Snake'. It kind of sounds like when I was in school and the maths teacher was ill, so the gym teacher came in to fill in.

I sometimes don't think that the BBC gets the market, the technology or the facilities offered.

I've nothing against the phone, I'm sure it's very good, but I've had a growing suspicion that when it comes to technology writing, the BBC just doesn't get it.

You know what I reckon? Get Phillipa Forester to write the technology articles and maybe we'll be better off because this kind of shallow dross is patronising and useles....

Ewan
20-09-2002, 11:23 AM
You know what I reckon? Get Phillipa Forester to write the technology articles and maybe we'll be better off because this kind of shallow dross is patronising and useles....

No, lets have Phillipa Forrester replacing Peter Sissons on the Ten O'Clock news so she's not relegated to dody BBC Choice cable programs that are never on at the same time...

:-(

SwitchBlade
22-09-2002, 02:10 AM
All the experts in this country are working at magazines or Vulture Central.

happygeek
22-09-2002, 10:16 AM
No, the BBC does not get IT at all, and IMHO never has done. They are the tabloid equivalent of an IT magazine.

Phillipa is a very nice young lady. She hosted the recent PC Pro Awards 2002 piss up and nosh party, er I mean black tie affair at The Dorchester a couple of weeks ago. Not only is she pretty and intelligent, but she knows her IT as well. Maybe not enough to write for a monthly IT mag, but certainly enough to do a darn sight better than the BBC currently.