Iโve had it with some of the UK news correspondentsโ negativity concerning the U.S. election.ย Earlier today I was checking TV news and saw reports on different networks from several British correspondents attending the Democratic National Convention.
The few I saw mainly gave sky-is-falling reports about how poor certain speakers are, how gloomy President Obamaโs chances are, how bad things are in their view.
Thatโs it, itโs their view.ย Why such invariably unremitting gloom and doom?ย They donโt get it right all the time either, yet seem willing to jaundice their audienceโs views (in this case, British people relying on the news to be accurate, not merely negative).ย Itโs irresponsible to present a distorted news picture; it gives such a wrong impression to British viewers who take interest in U.S. politics.
I remember vividly from the last election, how virtually every time I was interviewed on a news programme in the UK, the showโs host attempted to skewer me with questions which screamed their own negative views.ย I came to anticipate this after a learning curve, so I could just bet theyโd come at me from a glass-half-empty point of view.ย While playing devilโs advocate might be appropriate to a discerning reporter/ anchor/ journalist of repute, it was the unrelenting negativity about the U.S. election and candidates that was surprising.
Some people have said itโs the way reporters are in the U.K.ย Perhaps.
Iโd forgotten the delight of it all.ย Surely, it canโt all be going against our (candidate)(s) (election) (country).ย Itโs unreasonable to expect that all reports might be positive and sunny; OTOH, everything canโt be so negative.
Maybe itโs just me, trying to be fair and see both sides, not just one.
Why do interviewers in the UK โ and now, it seems, their people based in the U.S. โ consistently have this negative view of things?ย Is it a style of reporting they get with their motherโs milk?
Carole