I have to say that I didn't really warm to the initial moans on this week's Newswatch.
A smattering of Newswatch viewers complained about the suspension of Jeremy Clarkson from the BBC being made the lead story on BBC News. They didn't think it merited the attention - or that the mass petition calling for his 'saving' should even have been reported.
Given that petition (now nearing 900,000 signatures) and given the fact that vast swathes of the British public appear to have been talking about it (something I can vouch for), surely one day of Jezza leading the BBC News isn't disproportionate, is it? - a point presenter Samira Ahmed put to viewer Paul Hills.
However, I was somewhat taken up short by a point Paul then went on to make:
So often it seems to me that we get some self-advertising on the news. You know, Strictly comes up as a new item on the news broadcast. Well, I like that too but, again, it's not about news. And, actually, the first nine minutes of that particular broadcast [BBC One's News at One] it went on to talk about how the media was having lots of trouble with the election debates, and the whole thing struck me as incredibly self-regarding and the media was being the news when, in fact, the media is supposed to present the news to us, to keep us informed, to help us understand what's going on out there, rather than just bring in the stuff that just tickles their fancy, if you like, or seems important to them.
There's a lot of truth in that, isn't there? What "seems important to them" does, indeed, need questioning.
And the BBC is certainly prone to navel-gazing, rival-bashing and shameless self-promotion (think of the regular plugs on Today for some investigation to be broadcast later that day elsewhere on the BBC).
