Based on several days of BBC evening news viewing last week, it is clear that most of the news is both so repetitive and general that even a patient viewer can either lose interest regularly, and/or eventually decide to go elsewhere.

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Based on several days of BBC evening news viewing last week, it is clear that most of the news is both so repetitive and general that even a patient viewer can either lose interest regularly, and/or eventually decide to go elsewhere.

The BBC's daily weather broadcasts are a perfect example.

On comes the immaculately dressed broadcaster, male or female, accompanied by a huge round world globe, towering over and beside them. The announcers talk as the overwhelming globe revolves from one gigantic world area to another. It's complete with irregular weather colors: blue for rain or flooding, clear for sunny and white for cloudy. Meanwhile, floating by in various areas are symbols for tornados and other extraordinary conditions. No details at all!

Within what seems like a minute or more, the globe revolves as the announcer choses to describe North America, South America, Europe, Africa, the Near East and the Far East.  As these huge areas of the globe revolve from one area to the other, little white squares identifying several big cities, floating by, pop up with their temperature numbers.  The squares contain pouring rain drops or remain just white for clear or cloudy.

It's impossible for the viewer to accurately absorb most meaningful weather signs within each global view. The broadcasters give such abrupt, generalized and quick weather descriptions that the listeners immediately remember little or nothing. How could they? The entire world with a plethora of weather symbols and areas just roll on by.

So next, some BBC red globe symbols roll on to the news of the day. A new broadcaster appears to introduce himself or herself.

They then quickly summarize all the news stories, as various headlines from other stories roll on underneath, along the bottom of the television's screen. Then, the broadcaster takes on each those stories of the day, often followed by a news reporter he or she introduces to relate more specific information from the area where the news is breaking.

Here we are with those news headlines: Obama in Landmark Malaysia Visit;Media Divided over Palestinian Unit Deal; Pro-Russian Forces Detain European military observer mission; South Korea ferry disaster: All navigation crew 'held' One news event melds into the next, and one and on!

In one instance, a woman broadcaster read the headlines and lead paragraphs from a half dozen Palestinian and Israeli newspapers to report on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' extraordinary pact with Hamas that caused Israel to call off peace talks with the Palestinians. The BBC listener had no idea whether this newswoman had sought out and collected her own information for the story that day. Mostly, only the newspaper summaries were read out loud.

Day after day, it seemed, the BBC kept on carrying many of the very same story lines it headlined the day before, even if the developments were not entirely new or startling.

Where were the new story lines on BBC televised news? Where were the very new BBC TV stories of interest, either in the United Kingdom or around the world? Certainly, a look at the BBC Internet shows scores more news stories than this! It seemed none of the major news stories day after day told listeners much in the way of in depth details for any of those news stories the BBC TV broadcast. What happened to good old fashioned in depth or originally thought out news?

(Article changed on April 28, 2014 at 19:58)

Authors Website: http://www.birdscrittersbutterflies.webs.com/

Authors Bio:
Thomas D. Williams, a freelance writer, worked at The Hartford Courant for almost 40 years before retiring in November 2005 to become an investigative freelancer on Internet news sites. He has written a unique nature book, The Spirits of Birds, Bears, Butterflies and All Those Other Wild Creatures. It's summaries, photos and videos are posted on the Internet at http://www.birdscrittersbutterflies.webs.com/

After graduating from Middlebury College in 1962, he became a military intelligence officer specializing in investigating North Korean border crossers and in working on secret and top secret security clearances for government employees in Washington, D.C.

Throughout his career at the Courant, he has been a town reporter, a night police reporter, a state desk reporter, a state and federal court reporter and an investigative team reporter. He has been a supervisor of state reporters assigned to investigative work.

Williams has worked on countless investigations of governmental and business corruption. His earliest inquiries involved the exploitation of immigrants by high priced lawyers using U.S. Congressmen to obtain private immigration bills; and the exorbitant fees charged by lawyers friendly with a Hartford Probate Judge, eventually leading to the state's first impeachment inquiry of the judge. Still other of Williams' inquiries included an expose of Bridgeport Superior Court judge appointing and hiring his friends and relatives for court jobs; an extensive three week two-reporter car surveillance of the state's tax collector who was loafing on state time; misspending of state and federal grants and logging funds by Schaghticoke leaders on the Kent reservation; significant pollution of potential drinking water supplies by Kaman Aerospace; monopoly trash contractors overcharging customers; contract manipulations for companies with political influence at the Mid-Connecticut trash-to-energy plant and the banking bill voting records of legislators with bank interests.

In the past 15 years, he has worked extensively on investigative stories involving so called mysterious Persian Gulf War illnesses haunting U.S. and allied troops, the hazards of depleted uranium munitions and on articles controversies over the safety and legality of the military's mandatory anthrax vaccine.

Throughout his career, Dennie has received numerous local, state and national journalism awards, primarily for investigative reporting.

After retiring from The Courant in November 2005, Williams began freelancing for several Connecticut papers including The Connecticut Law Tribune and for Truthout.org and The Public Record http://pubrecord.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1, both in depth and investigative reporting news sites.