News and Gossip

In newspaper-land a dull lie is seldom detected, but an interesting exaggeration drives an unimaginative rival to hysterical denunciations.

Edgar Wallace – Four Just Men (1905)

The news is a rum notion. Rather than The News it could be called Some News which wouldn’t be particularly accurate but much better than The News as if news emerges accurately and autonomously from somewhere and there is only one version. We also seem to need some way to indicate that The News generally emanates from the chattering classes and their interests.

In which case, a less deceptive term might be Gossip. Or perhaps Gossip n’Froth, although that does come across as a little too tabloid even for the tabloids. Maybe Gossip and Events would do. It could consist of a basic output of gossip with the occasional inclusion of a straightforward narration of a real event or two. Yet even events are usually embedded in gossip, so the idea does have weaknesses.

Yet BBC News at Six could become BBC Gossip at Six and surely that would be an improvement. It brings in the chattering classes contribution for example. On the whole, Gossip seems to be a more accurate term than The News, so as a progressive organisation the BBC should welcome the change.

Of course, scepticism about the value of The News to its more avid consumers is certainly not news and hasn’t been for a very long time –

Hussonnet was not amusing. By dint of writing every day on all sorts of subjects, reading many newspapers, listening to a great number of discussions, and uttering paradoxes for the purpose of dazzling people, he had in the end lost the exact idea of things, blinding himself with his own feeble fireworks.

Gustave Flaubert – Sentimental Education (1869)