Veteran BBC war correspondent Kate Adie has criticised the culture of 24-hour news channels by suggesting they reduced coverage of world events into “showbizzy” events, according to a report.
Speaking at the Emirates Airline Literature Festival in Dubai, Telegraph.co.uk reported that Adie launched an attack on “young and fluffy” looking newsreaders where looks counted for more than journalistic skill.
She said: “It is no good your reporters bringing back a two-minute distillation of the crucial events. Nowadays they have to graze across all those things and they have to stand and speculate a bit.”
Adie said this style of reporting dragged reporters away from frontline newsgathering and left viewers short-changed.
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She added: “It is becoming more showbizzy, to be perfectly honest.
“What you get with the news programmes is that news is becoming much less formal.
“This is how it used to be: there would be two people sitting behind a desk. There would be a man in a smart suit and here, a much younger woman. This is the pattern all around the world.
“Now you tune into several of the British channels – and we are not the only ones doing it – and off they go, marching around the studio and legs get crossed.
“News is moving into the entertainment world. It is becoming friendly, cosy and appealing and you have newsreaders empathising.
“This is not down to journalists. It is because news is being used almost wholly as an entertainment vehicle. It is not clear where this is going.
“Why are all the women in TV news the way they are? It is the insistence on the young, the fluffy.”
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