Jacintha Saldanha's Funeral - BBC News Reverts to Simple Factual Reporting

Today BBC News very soberly reports on the funeral of Jacintha Saldanha that takes place in India.  The tone of the report is dispassionate and factual.  But the BBC has not played a distinguished role in the unfolding of this sorry tale.

The story started with *Kate Middleton being admitted to hospital. For the next two days the BBC made it their lead story. They interviewed experts on ‘morning sickness. They discussed all implications for the line of succession; the possible gender of the new baby. They milked the story dry. They did this despite the fact that at twelve weeks the pregnancy was at a critical stage and a more responsible approach would have been to maintain a distance between themselves and the rest of the media clamour.

 Very little actual information emitted from the hospital. But that wasn’t important. There was a media scrum to report on. Why not turn the camera on the jostling journalists outside? Now it was a David Attenborough documentary. It was like they were filming orang-utans in the rainforrests of Borneo. The BBC was above the melee: a separate species. Yet minutes later BBC reporter Luisa Baldini is screaming, microphone outstretched, ‘Kate! Kate! How are you feeling?’ The BBC didn’t just report in the story: they rolled about in it, luxuriating, for days on end.

Then the Australian DJ’s played their phone hoax. The BBC led with that story as the most important story of the day. Of course they had to play the recording of the hoax call in every single bulletin for the next two days. This was manna from heaven. The BBC could live off trivial stories like these forever. By elevating all the surmise and supposition and designate it as a headline story they could survive indefinitely without bothering with stories that actually have an effect on people’s lives. They can push back the less sexy stories about what’s happening to the other seven billion people on the planet to a less prominent position.

When poor Jacintha Saldanha committed suicide BBC News deftly switches tack from amusement and mock outrage to the ‘blame game’. High minded journalists turn their attention to where the blame lies; the hospital; the DJ’s ; the radio station or the media. They conveniently forget, of course, their own irresponsible coverage.

Now, the final chapter in a sorry story. Now we get the tight-lipped reporting of Mrs. Saldanha’s funeral.

It’s a shame that the BBC, as well as providing some excellent quality reporting, feels the need to compete with the Sun, to supply sordid sensation, gossip and surmise.