Speaking from the perspective of someone who's been behind a camera on this sort of event:
- Yes you will get better coverage by waiting. A large part of the problem with the Jubilee is that it's just a bunch of boats floating down a river, and guess what, it isn't interesting for six hours. This forces people to ad-lib and fill in desperately, which is extremely difficult to do well if it isn't your specialist subject. Edited down you can create a worthwhile and informative precis of the topic which is much better use of airtime. Unfortunately, most of the major news broadcasters have people whose specific job it is to make a note of when their competitors get a story on air; this leads to ridiculous second-by-second counting and champagne all round if we do it faster than the other guys for a week, regardless of the quality of coverage. It's pathetic.
- The presenters (and the crews, and the individual directors) are either not culpable or not that culpable. Most television these days is produced at the dictat of a fairly rarefied band of upper-middle-class yes-men with very little life experience and degrees in sycophancy. These people target television at a sort of imaginary audience of stupid people which probably doesn't exist and would be the end of invention if it did.
As a result we have a media that is specifically designed to snub logic and critical thinking at its roots; a sort of analgesic lozenge for the brain that does its level best to turn us all into good little consumers.
Which is why I don't shoot news anymore.
You may be able to tell I'm not having a very good day.
Last edited by Phil_R; 28th Jun 2012 at 15:37.