The 10 o'clock prophecy...

The Party conference season here runs its course and for once the 24 hours news coverage which so comprehensively blights life and language in England actually has something worth visiting more than once or twice a day. But the opportunity of more 'new' news events worth recording and and comment is buried under an even more intense than usual process of prophecy.

The media have taken to prophecy already, in their day to day announcements, but now it is becoming simply dreadful. I mean the process by which the presenters are given to read information, not about what has happened, nor about what might be going on, nor even about what is expected (but as yet unknown): but in detail about what is actually going to happen. We no longer have news that the Prime Minister is going to speak, and perhaps that circumstances suggest 'he is likely at some point to address the topic of...' . No, what we get now is that 'he will say...' followed by an often very detailed account of what he is going to say.

I wondered at first if this growing phenomenon was the creation of Spin Doctors, giving out advance copies of speeches not merely so the media could be well prepared but also to ensure they might be more likely to report something echoing the desired spin. But I come to suspect a different cause. I think the practice of prophecy has grown because News 24 desperately needs material, and equally desperately wants to get it out before the competition to justify its existence. But all it does is devalue their reporting of news, and I for one am weary of it.