Go Figure -- BBC World Television Blankets Kennedy Funeral But On CNNI Its Talk Asia And The Like

Philip Stone August 31, 2009 Follow on Twitter

CNN International (CNNI) apparently believed Senator Kennedy’s funeral was of interest only domestically in the US so it was business as usual on the network Saturday afternoon and evening with more repeats of Talk Asia and the like. But on BBC World there were more than three hours of non-stop, no commercial interruption funeral coverage from before the hearse arrived at the Boston church until after its departure. Goes to show that the 24-hour TV news networks are not alike!

Indeed, if you didn’t live in the US and you wanted blanket coverage of Saturday’s Kennedy events then you had to be mighty agile with the cable tuner.  The non-brainer, one would have thought, was to watch such an American event on the American-based CNNI for obviously CNN would have pulled out all of the coverage stops domestically, but thinking that kind of coverage would make its way to the international channel was a big mistake. It was BBC World that gave complete natural sound funeral coverage from start to end, not CNNI. Time and again during the funeral a switch to CNNI looking for that US coverage and commentary only brought packaged programs such as Talk Asia or news headlines and the like. BBC World stayed with the funeral throughout.

So, it would seem the BBC folks in London thought this was a big international story deserving complete live coverage, but the folks in Atlanta apparently thought people outside the US wouldn’t really care that much. Times like this that one is grateful to have a cable system that offers great news choice!

But what about coverage after the funeral as the body was flown to Washington for burial at Arlington Cemetery? The major event en route was to be a stop in front of the Capitol for a brief ceremony attended by members of Congress and their staff.  But moving between the various English language channels there were no live pictures on that procession arriving at the Capitol until, can you believe it, Al Jazeera English. It had a correspondent at Arlington Cemetery doing voiceovers with the studio anchor. The cortege, however, committed the TV sin of being far later than expected, arriving just before the half-hour and we all know what that means in cable TV land -- Al Jazeera English like its other English language cable networks has the “program schedule” disease and 30 minutes past the hour meant the regular scheduled documentary at 0030 CET took precedence – can you believe it cut away just as the priest was about to speak?

So again, work the remote and up came EuroNews showing the Capitol ceremony live under its “No Comment” banner. But that was for just two minutes. On the exact half-hour it was bye-bye Washington Capitol and hello to a regular news cast.

Hit the remote to CNNI – can you believe, still no live coverage; hit the remote to BBC World – no, they chose to show an old Hardtalk interview with an actress that had already been on several times over the weekend; Sky was useless; Al-Jazeera had its documentary, but just when it seemed there was no hope, voilà, France 24 English had live coverage. And it stayed with it until the procession moved on.

For a news junkie, hitting the cable tuner all day for such live coverage was really frustrating.  The BBC that obviously felt the funeral deserved full coverage had done  a 180-degree turn for events afterwards – although interestingly its domestic 24 hour news operation did give some extended coverage during the European evening and you felt it had scheduled to show the Washington ceremonies if only the cortege wasn’t an hour or so late!  

Never did see any live coverage on CNNI although maybe there was some scattered from time to time such as the Obama eulogy, but every time we looked it was just another of their endless repeats of documentary shows that the network now transmits on weekends displacing so many of its weekend newscasts it used to have in the past (cost savings? cheaper to run another documentary repeat than produce a newscast?) While its few Saturday newscasts certainly reported the story as the first item the lack of blanket live coverage was as if CNNI was sending out the message it did not want to be seen as an American network and international viewers were not going to be bothered with live coverage of an event that Atlanta obviously thought did not warrant such international coverage. Maybe Atlanta is the wrong place to make such decisions!

It would have been interesting to hear the reasoning behind the Brits in London deciding the funeral merited blanket coverage on BBC World while CNNI chose not to.

Al Jazeera’s English coverage was interesting for what its correspondent said that other network reporters did not. At times like these reporters tend to accentuate the positive about the deceased but Al Jazeera’s correspondent was not shy in reminding her viewers of the 1969 Chappaquiddick bridge episode and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne – Kennedy was only charged with leaving the scene of an accident for which he pleaded guilty but the many lingering doubts about the case destroyed his attempts to become President. The correspondent got real close to the line standing there at the cemetery, however, when she said there were Americans who questioned where Kennedy might really end up, given what happened that Chappaquiddick night. And she reminded viewers that Kennedy supported abortion rights – against the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church — and she said there were Catholics asking out loud why under such circumstances he was allowed a full funeral Mass. You didn’t hear that kind of reporting elsewhere.

But for overall coverage of the day’s events if one was outside the US and wanted to watch the Kennedy funeral and the events afterwards then one really had to work the cable remote, switching from channel to channel to channel while being thankful of having the benefit of being wired into a cable service (Geneva, Switzerland) that provides access to a full complement of international English language news services. But it was a hard slog.

See also in ftm Knowledge

The BBC

Few pure media brands transcend borders and boundries to acheive the iconic status of the BBC. The institution has come to define public service broadcasting. Yet missteps, errors and judgment questions fuel critics. The BBC battles those critics and competitors and, sometimes, itself. 72 pages PDF (February 2009)

ftm Members order here

Available at no charge to ftm Members, others from €49
Order

Media in Spain - Diverse and Challenged – new

Media in Spain is steeped in tradition. yet challenged by diversity. Publishers hold great influence, broadcasters competing. New media has been slow to rise and business models for all are under stress. Rich in language and culture, Spain's media is reaching into the future and finding more than expected. 123 pages, PDF. January 2018

Order here

The Campaign Is On - Elections and Media

Elections campaigns are big media events. Candidates and issues are presented, analyzed and criticized in broadcast and print. Media is now more of a participant in elections than ever. This ftm Knowledge file reports on news coverage, advertising, endorsements and their effect on democracy at work. 84 pages. PDF (September 2017)

Order here

Fake News, Hate Speech and Propaganda

The institutional threat of fake news, hate speech and propaganda is testing the mettle of those who toil in news media. Those three related evils are not new, by any means, but taken together have put the truth and those reporting it on the back foot. Words matter. This ftm Knowledge file explores that light. 48 pages, PDF (March 2017)

Order here

More ftm Knowledge files here

Become an ftm Individual or Corporate Member to order Knowledge Files at no charge. JOIN HERE!