World Service radio

[Fanta]

to which I was listening this morning.

There was a woman reporter at some refugee camp somewhere, who went to a local hospital to inspect the people who had had limbs blown off because they had taken refuge in a place which had previously been sown with land-mines, and I swear to God the wretched crone was cooing at them. “How old are you? Nine? And you’ve had your hand blown off? Aaaawwwww.”

She sounded as if she were congratulating a six-year-old American beauty queen on the mother’s day card she’d made. It made me feel sick. But when is it ever appropriate to coo on a news programme? Is it ever appropriate to coo on a news programme?

[Carinthia]

No, it isn’t

Sometimes there is cooing in a strange accent, which makes it seem worse

There is the modern equivalent of ‘Music & Movement’ at about 3 am, which is also atrocious

IMO

Carinthia.xx

[Carinthia]

I have been thinking more on this. There are also some presenters with such mournful voices that I don’t quite believe them when they are talking about something nice - am thinking of the likes of Orla Guerin here

Many programmes are recycled these days, so you might hear it 3 times in a week, if you are unlucky…

Carinthia.xx

[joe]

the modern equivalent of ‘Music & Movement’ at about 3 am

You missed out “bowel”

[JustJanie]

That’s how Felicity Finch talks on Woman’s Hour. She does the caring voice.

[joe]

[HedgeSparrow]

[soobee]

Lyce Doucet rocks, imho. She is reporting on unspeakable horrors, in unspeakably horrible places. I love her Canadian accent. So, there I am.
Soo xx

[Fanta]

So long as she doesn’t coo over wounded children that way, I will be in favour of her. If she does, then i cannot away with her.

[soobee]

But, Chris, that is the first time I have heard any cooing from Lyce. How are reporters meant to convey the horrors to an audience that is, seemingly, inured to the usual bald-stated factual stuff?
Soo xx

[joe]

The trouble is I find myself trying to place the accent* (it’s always struck me as a sort of WS Wiwyum) and miss what she’s actually saying.




*Acadian, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadians

[Fanta]

Not by cooing. There is nothing cute about a child’s hand having been blown off by a landmine.

Would a male reporter coo? No, he would not. So why should a female?

[Armitage]

Frankly, like Sue Lloyd-Roberts and Kate Adie before her I am suspicious. Orla Guerin gives the game away with that surname.

Do they go places where bad things happen and report on them … or are they the perps ? Seems too much like a coincidence to me that wherever they go devastation is wreaked.

… &, yes, that accent. It’s bizarre.