Talks to Watch

Charlie Brooker's How to Report the News - Newswipe - BBC

2.5M views · Feb 5, 2010 · 2:03 · 4 HN recommenders · 9 mentions · discussed 2013–2025

A short satirical segment from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe that lampoons the formulaic conventions of television news reporting, from stock shots to filler street interviews and news-speak.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN invokes it as the best spoof of how news is formulaically produced, often when discussing media quality or automated news.

What Hacker News said 9

Strongly recommendschxJun 2023

“Charlie Brooker is fantastic: On how news is reported”

Brooker is fantastic on how news is reported.

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Charlie Brooker is fantastic: On how news is reported this video On how mass shooting is reported and about the saturation link

in “Charlie Brooker Got ChatGPT to Write a Black Mirror Episode” · view on HN
Recommendsdavid-givenJan 2016

“This is the best run-down of the BBC house style I've seen”

Best rundown of BBC house style.

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The Al Jazeera that we get in the UK is apparently run by a lot of ex-BBC people, and uses a lot of the BBC house style, which means and news report will instantly look respectable to a big British market segment. Not that I've ever met anyone in the UK who's ever watched it, of course. This is the best run-down of the BBC house style I've seen: this video

in “Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April” · view on HN
Recommendscirrus-cloudsApr 2018

“Charlie Brooker did an excellent spoof video of the way news is reported.”

Excellent spoof of news reporting that still rings true.

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Charlie Brooker did an excellent spoof video of the way news is reported. The video is 8 years old (made in 2010) but it still rings true today: How to report the news: this video Every TV news report on the economy in one: link

in “Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script” · view on HN
RecommendshgomersallFeb 2025

“the not-quite-on-point, but nevertheless excellent two related segments below”

Excellent though not quite on-point Brooker segments.

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Most mainstream documentaries are full of fluff. You can generally read the transcript of a half hour programme in a couple of minutes. I thought Charlie Brooker might have a useful segment on it, but all I could find were the not-quite-on-point, but nevertheless excellent two related segments below: link this video

in “He went to jail for stealing someone's identity, but it was his all along” · view on HN
Cites itchestnut-treeDec 2013

“These clips from Charlie Brooker (British TV presenter) give a good sense of the formulaic way news is reported”

Shows the formulaic way news is reported.

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I'm from the UK and I'd go so far as to say the majority of the British press are toxic. They have an incredibly inflated view of themselves and they couldn't care less about what's in the public interest (just look at how they've responded to the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry which investigated the repulsive ethics and culture of the British press). The UK press empahtically follow their own self-interests and agendas (and that includes broadsheets like The Guardian). There will always be individual reporters who rise above the abysmally low standard of reporting - but they are a tiny minority. TV news is better in my opinion - they at least aspire to some measure of impartiality. These clips from Charlie Brooker (British TV presenter) give a good sense of the formulaic way news is reported (strong language in the videos). this video link

Cites itmajewskyFeb 2016

“Like in Charlie Brooker's "How to report the news"”

Example of filler street interviews in news reports.

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I don't think it's zeitgeist only. Or at least, not on such a short scale. The pre-internet equivalent of that is interviewing random people on the street about current events, to fill the 2:30 of your news report with something vaguely related to the subject. Like in Charlie Brooker's "How to report the news": this video

in “Twitter, to Save Itself, Must Scale Back World-Swallowing Ambitions” · view on HN
Cites itmrleiterNov 2018

“he pointed out all the standard videoshots and animations used these days to report on a topic [1]”

Brooker points out standard news shots and news-speak, relevant to automated anchors.

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Before Charlie Brooker started producing Black Mirror, he already was a highly observant critic of society and media. At one point he produced a generic news snippet of an unspecified event, where he pointed out all the standard videoshots and animations used these days to report on a topic [1]. He presented this "report" with the standard news-speak pronunciation of sentences. With this achievement of Amazon, and the recent development by China in AI news-anchors [2], one is not far off to see news reporting being done mostly by machines. Yes, some videography must still be done manually, but the rest could be automated. What that means for the TV news industry? I don't know, but it certainly deserves discussion. [1] this video [2] link

in “Varying Speaking Styles with Neural Text-to-Speech” · view on HN
Cites itjodrellblankSep 2019

“The text equivalent of Charlie Brooker's "How to report the news" segment”

Compared to text equivalent of the news-style segment.

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Pompous boring filler in the house style?[1] Yawn, no thanks. As you say, there are plenty of free outlets of information. What more explanation do you need? “Quality journalism” has its price, and the market doesn’t want to pay for it. Quality software has its price too, but the market prefers Linux. Wait, are you associating “free” with “low quality” or am I? Who can tell with quality these days. One thing’s for sure, it’s a difficult issue. [1] The text equivalent of Charlie Brooker's "How to report the news" segment: this video

JokeYeGoblynQueenneDec 2024

“Here's my contribution for today: Charlie Brooker's How to Report the News - Newswipe - BBC”

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I had to squint to be sure it was meant as comedy. Here's my contribution for today: Charlie Brooker's How to Report the News - Newswipe - BBC this video

in “Open source maintainers are drowning in junk bug reports written by AI” · view on HN