Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Broken News


"Broken News - 5 continents, 25 channels, 227 reporters - you get the picture." What a splendid way to finish Wednesday night TV ...

We've just finished watching 'Broken News' on SBS ... what a sad indictment of news - or as the Chaser boys dubbed it a few years ago 'newstainment'. Like CNNNN on speed and with the attention span of a goldfish ... you've got to laugh. Our favourites were hosts Richard Pritchard and Melanie Bellamy and not to mention the Mel and Koshie bantering of the two hosts with their aged weatherman. And what's it with non sequiters (being the queen of them in our household) or the ability to string together a couple of sensible sentences about something meaningful?

Several scenes reminded me of my Year 12 History teacher who would routinely come out with 'Yes, you've got a good grasp of the obvious.' It's sad though when its our news reporting. Reminds me why we dont bother with commercial news or 'current affairs programs' ... unless we want a really good laugh.

In retrospect (as the show was from 2005) it shows up the absolute stupidity and absurdity of the Coalition of the Willings (funny that you dont hear that term bantered about any more!) take on why they were justified in storming Iraq. Thank God Bolivia doesn't have nuclear weapons either (you'll understand if you saw the show).


The show has a phenomenal cast of 145 actors and is from the producer of Stephen Fry's Absolute Power. From the BBC website: Each episode mirrors how we, as consumers of continuous news, surf the infinite choice of networks, pressing the button immediately an item loses our interest, desperate for something to hold our interest, moving on as soon as we are bored. It's a show that starts and ends half-way through a sentence with news networks that don't exist but could, reporting on stories that haven't happened yet but just might..." I think however it will be replaced next week my Sean Macaliffe's "Newstopia" - because only SBS would actually allow Macaliffe the freedom to say and do as he pleases. Hurray for Wednesday night TV!

Fav moment from Chasers War on Everything had to be the Beatles version of Anna Coren's nonsensical story lead in (followed closely by Andrew Hansen's piss take of Tim Friedman) They just keep getting better and better.

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