Interesting editorial decisions in BBC Global News promotional film

A short video entitled “BBC Global News 2012 Highlights Film” was recently uploaded to Vimeo by Online Journalism and Innovation Editor at BBC Global News, Mohammad Ziyadah

The film can be viewed here.

After introductory footage highlighting the BBC World Service’s broadcasts in different languages, the film turns to a section entitled “the big stories kept on coming” which shows short pieces of footage from various stories covered by the BBC in 2012 – many of them in the Middle East and North Africa. 

Although no real context is given for any of the items included in that section of the film, it is notable that in all but one of the cases, the narrative refrains from providing information on who is doing what to whom.

The exception to that rule comes at 02:49 when, against a background of obviously artistically enhanced visuals, a BBC announcer says:

“The BBC’s Jon Donnison was speaking to us live when Israeli air-strikes hit buildings right in front of him.”

global news 2012 2

Immediately following that segment, at 03:07, and without connection to any of the stories being narrated, comes the following image which is shown for around one second before the film moves on to show footage of a report on abuse in care homes filmed in Jordan.

global news 2012 1

The image of course shows a specific section of the anti-terrorist barrier and has obviously also been artistically edited to include the red line. 

Those are very interesting editorial decisions. 

More from Hadar Sela
BBC Arafat binge continues to promote conspiracy theories
The BBC’s recent Arafat overdose – which began on November 6th when...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *