Thursday, September 25, 2008

What you could learn in a minute.

I was looking through the BBC new website today and found that I could receive what BBC considers the most important news headlines in less than a minute. BBC has a link on their website BBC One-Minute World News that highlights major headlines in the media. It is updated 24 hours and the one I watched noted President Bush's meeting with congressional members and presidential candidates about the financial rescue plan, then it moved on to report the swearing in of the new South African President, US troops engaging in open fire with Afghanistan after a US helicopter was shot down, and finally the launching of the third Chinese space craft...devoting less than 20 seconds to each topic. I understand the fast-past culture of our society, and maybe BBC One-Minute World News was aimed to keep up. Or perhaps, BBC news hoped that people would watch the clips and do further investigation on their own, but is this really likely. Considering the importance of these events and the affect they could have on our nation and even the world, is it to much to ask for more than 20 seconds each?

2 comments:

GWW said...

I think its kind of an interesting concept. I mean, it obviously won't keep you well informed, but if you just want a quick sum up of today's important events its very useful. But I think you're right that not all users will do the further research that is necessary to really know what is going on.

chelsea b said...

At least they're showing these news clips at all though. On the American news sites, you really have to dig around to find any sort of information about these topics. Just this morning I was looking up the fighting in the Middle East; it was front page, in the center, on BBC. But on the NY Times, it wasn't on the front page. On the Washington Post, you had to click on World News and then select the Middle East as a region before anything even came up!