Charlie Brooker's Newswipe. S01 E05.
First broadcast 22nd April 2009.
Due to over-stretched production resources and the fact that Charlie was suffering from a herniated disc, this episode was comprised of a compilation of highlights from the previous four episodes.
Charlie Brooker
Adam Curtis
Due to over-stretched production resources and the fact that Charlie was suffering from a herniated disc, this episode was comprised of a compilation of highlights from the previous four episodes.
Charlie Brooker
Adam Curtis
Transcript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching Newswiper Program all about what's been happening
00:27like this. Brown smear apology. He's now so unpopular even bystanders don't want to be
00:34caught near him. Banal footage of frumpy singing woman astounds imbeciles worldwide. And best
00:42budget ever! Or worst, depending on what happened after we recorded the voiceover. But first,
00:48well look, we were always scheduled to do five regular episodes of this program and
00:52one best of compilation at the end. Due to us having limited resources and stretching
00:57everything and everyone to a breaking point to get things like the G20 protests in last week
01:02and some circumstances beyond our control which you can probably guess at, we've had to swap the
01:07last two episodes around so we're doing our final regular episode next week. This week it's our best
01:12of compilation show full of classic moments which you're gonna love. Starting with this
01:18classic moment. It's me standing in a factory full of dummies. It might sound like an odd
01:27statement but the relationship between the news and what I like to think of as real people has
01:32shifted somewhat throughout the years. Not so long ago the news basically consisted of a bloke
01:38at a desk telling you the viewer what had happened that day with the help of some reporters, some
01:42cheap graphics and an irritating weatherman. Real people, i.e. us common or garden shoe wearing
01:48schlubs didn't get much of a look in except of course if we'd witnessed something important. She
01:53told me what happened after the first explosion and the second bomb didn't go off for a good 10
01:58minutes after that. But in the late 70s and early 80s this began to change and real people started
02:03to have more input. The concept of the public having their say hit a peak in 1983 when housewife
02:08Diane Gould famously put the boot into Mrs. Thatcher live on Nationwide's on the spot segment.
02:12Mrs. Thatcher why when the Belgrano the Argentinian battleship was outside the exclusion zone and
02:21actually sailing away from the Falklands why did you give the orders to sink it? But it was not
02:27sailing away from the Falklands it was in an area which was a danger to our ships. Mrs. Thatcher I
02:35am saying that nobody with any imagination can put it sailing other than away from the Falklands.
02:41Mrs. I'm sorry I forgot your name. It was in an area which was a danger to our ships. Now you
02:50accept that do you? No. It was proof that real people's questioning of the facts could move the
02:57story forward for the journalists so from this point on their opinions were solicited more
03:01frequently whether they were interesting or not. I think a pound note has got more value than a pound coin. I prefer the railway logos. I don't know why they've come with torches this time. That situation changed with the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Here the public's
03:16emotional reaction became the central focus of the story itself. It started out as shock and sorrow.
03:22The outpouring of emotion just grows by the day. What had begun as a sea of flowers has now turned
03:29into an ocean. Before mutating into anger. The Queen's not in residence today but where the
03:34hell is the flag? You see what I'm saying about the establishment? And it eventually altered the
03:39events themselves. This afternoon provided the focal point the crowds have been demanding. Their
03:45sudden appearance on the Mall just one of a series of fast-moving changes in which Buckingham
03:50Palace repeatedly bowed to the wishes of the people. Well I'm glad she's listened to obviously
03:56to the media isn't she and to the people. Afterwards the news was terribly pleased with itself for reflecting
04:01the feeling of the nation for being so wonderfully inclusive which is odd because the entire saga
04:06left me and I suspect millions of other people like me feeling weirdly alienated because I wasn't
04:12an anguished mourner. Diana's death didn't make me happy but it didn't move me to come down to the
04:16palace and demand to see the Queen weeping on the pavement either. Inadvertently what the news was
04:21doing was driving a wedge between regular people and emotional demonstrative and some might say
04:26overreactive people and ever since Diana's death it's been this second group that's had more
04:30influence over the news agenda. That's why stories such as this angry ITN news piece on the Baby P
04:36report often lead on the emotional public outcry. Baby P's grave is still surrounded by the thought
04:42and care he never had in life. No one was there to help you reads this card. In effect the journalist
04:48and the public have swapped places instead of offering us a factual summary of events that we
04:53can then form an emotional opinion on they're asking us for our emotional opinion and then
04:57incorporate it into their factual summary of events. Anyway opinions and emotions are one
05:03thing pictures are another. The 2004 tsunami was a decisive moment for user content most of these
05:09terrifying clips had been gathered by traditional news agencies which in turn sold them on to TV
05:14networks who ran them again and again and again. It was so exciting that the BBC set up a dedicated
05:21user-generated content department aimed at harvesting footage directly from the viewers.
05:26Shortly afterwards 7-7 happened and harrowing pictures sent in by those caught up in the attacks
05:30quickly made it directly onto the screen. People shot hours of footage. Now of course I can
05:36completely understand why you'd want to look through a viewfinder if you found yourself caught
05:40up in the middle of something like this seeing it all through a lens would somehow disconnect you
05:44from the misery of what was happening and make it seem less real. At least that's why I do it
05:48whenever I get caught up in a bloody argument in a bloody relationship. A few months after 7-7 another
06:00citizen journalism spectacular occurred as the Buncefield oil depot went up like a well like an
06:05exploding oil depot. Minutes after the first explosions two young men took a video camera to
06:11within 50 meters of the fires they defied official advice to keep away. Yes helpfully illustrating one
06:16of the potential pitfalls of citizen journalism two amateur filmmakers raced towards the inferno
06:21with their lenses on. Aside from recklessly dumb visual observation we also got to enjoy
06:26recklessly dumb vocal observation as one of them said it wasn't a fire but actually Satan coming to
06:33earth in the form of oil. See imagine we were sitting right here when it went and it did that
06:43to those buildings. Yeah I imagine we'd be dead. Yeah well good job there aren't any oil tanks left to explode
06:49yeah. At one point their camera zooms in on an oil tank yet to explode. Well this should be good
06:55they stick around. We've got to make a move now because they're expecting another explosion if
07:00there is another explosion we're gonna die. Oh come back I was enjoying that you chicken. Their pictures are
07:07another example of the growing public involvement in the recording of major news events. They knew
07:13it was dangerous but say their filming instincts took over from personal fear. Still at least the
07:18Buncefield footage was spectacular because it was a massive explosion and not say a bit of snow. Now
07:24about 20 years ago the news used to cover heavy snowfall like this. Moira Stewart dressed in a
07:30straitjacket barking a load of basic information about which trains weren't running. Services to
07:35Sheffield and Newcastle are also disrupted. And a few sternly voiced VT reports telling you what to
07:41do. Emergency services have repeated their advice for people to stay inside wrap up warm and not to
07:48venture out unless it's absolutely necessary. Fast forward to earlier this year and a cold
07:53snap has suddenly become a chance to turn the news into a cuddly wuddly multimedia slideshow.
07:58Eventually the sheer amount of user-generated content they'd received became a self-congratulatory
08:04story in itself. 35,000 pictures the BBC yesterday received of the weather an absolutely amazing
08:12response our biggest ever response. Who'd have thought a national weather condition would have
08:15generated that many pictures. 35,000 in one day we just couldn't believe it. How do you wade through
08:21all those pictures like that? Yeah how and why? These pictures we're just looking at now I mean
08:26they're beautifully shot. Still it was fun to hear Bill Turnbull getting a bit Alan Partridge about
08:31some of the more jackass-y clips. That is dangerous that really I would not recommend at all. It's
08:38probably illegal and it's not something to do. I don't know maybe I'm mean-spirited but when I see
08:43all these zany photos sent in by zany f***ing members of the public I just want to run out
08:48into the street and start kicking people in the neck. F*** your snowman pictures don't send them
08:52into the news. You know why? Because they're not news they're f***ing snowman pictures. If the snowman's
08:58learned to talk or he's hanging Saddam Hussein that's news. This is what news looks like and
09:03this is what a snowman looks like. Can you see the difference? You know what? Paxman agrees with me.
09:10In the meantime it's all available again on the website along with our editors. Pathetic pleas
09:14for you to send some of us your old bits of home movie and the like so we can become the BBC's
09:19version of animals do the funniest things. Good night. That's them told yeah. Now in our third
09:26week we took a look at American news commentators who were mad people basically like this. The fair
09:33and balanced opinion slingers of dystopian future sci-fi satirical shouty porn sledgehammer channel
09:38Fox News are the craziest people you ever did see. Fox generally leans more to the right than a man
09:43who's just had his right leg blown off and now Obama's in the White House their commentators
09:47are getting to play the underdog at last. If you believe this country is great but nobody is
09:51fighting for you let me tell you something you don't need any guns for this revolution you just
09:56need to stand up and find your voice come on follow me. Although it's a curious kind of underdoggery
10:02where they complain about liberal bias in the media one moment and then brag about their cable
10:07dominance the next. Now to a dumb foreigner like me all the Fox anchors look like characters in
10:12some 80s frat house comedy. For instance Sean Hannity here would be cast as the uptight jock
10:19bully witness his cold inked eyes which could have been surgically transplanted from a particularly
10:23characterless doormouse and his whiny peevish demeanor. We can't say enemy combatant we can't
10:28say terrorist we'll get to those things in a second now we're not gonna use the term illegal
10:32immigrant. The disapproving high school principal would have to be Bill O'Reilly moralizing about
10:38permissive society one minute. The Woodstock generation thought it was cool to get stoned.
10:43And chortling about lady bumps the next. Their pitch is beach friendly if you know what I mean
10:49and we believe they are patriots. When there's no tits to dribble over Bill kills time by boasting
10:55about his ratings. Judging from our enormous ratings I think we've been successful in doing
11:00that. Or plugging his myriad books. I do want to thank you all for keeping bold fresh on the
11:06bestseller list for more than six months. Or simply sitting there pulling a face like a
11:10tortoise that's learned to enjoy the stink of its own farts. But his primary characteristic is anger.
11:15Bill gets wound up by virtually anything to the left of Mussolini hectoring and yowling like a
11:19wolf that's got his nuts caught on a coat hanger. See I'm more angry about it than you are. So what
11:24about George Bush? What about George Bush? He had nothing to do with it. Still if you think Bill
11:28O'Reilly is outrageous you haven't seen anything yet. This is recent Fox signing Glenn Beck who at
11:34first glance looks like a welcoming happy kind of chap. He effectively presents his commentary
11:39show in the style of a wacky neighbor from a bad sitcom. Although actually rather than a sitcom
11:44this is more like an out-and-out variety show replete with zany chuckles. You think that's
11:48gonna that ain't gonna happen. Table-thumping conservative rhetoric. I think this makes a
11:54good case to shoot people on the battlefield. Well you got these guys we can't keep him in
12:01prison because they're not technically terrorists but they were in terrorist training camps. Were
12:08they fighting against us? Well they were they were in a terrorist training camp. Yeah I mean we go in
12:14you shoot them then. And toe-tapping patriotic country music. When I see people on my TV taking
12:22shots at Uncle Sam. I hope they always remember why they can. Because we'd all be speaking German
12:34or living under the flag of Japan if it wasn't for the good Lord and the man. Anyway so far you're
12:42probably thinking okay it's extremely right-wing but it's fairly sane. Yes because Beck isn't just
12:49a face of news he's a bona fide social crusader who started his own post-apocalyptic sounding 9-12
12:54project aimed at bringing the nation together in a spirit of unity and hope and something and stuff.
13:00This is the 9-12 Project. Are you ready to be that person that you were that day after 9-11 on 9-12? I
13:13told you for weeks you're not alone. Now I don't know if you've seen the superb and prophetic movie
13:19Network in which Peter Finch played a news anchor who loses his mind and becomes a ranting raving
13:23rating smash after sinister bosses leave him on air. I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.
13:30This is basically like that but crazier and starring Paul Dramatic in a blonde wig. The real power to
13:37change America's core still resides with you. You are the secret. You're the answer. I'm sorry. I just love my
13:50country and I fear for it.
13:55It seems like the voices of our leaders and special interests and the media they're surrounding us. It is it sounds intimidating or mental.
14:13The truth is they don't surround us. We surround them. This is our country. And now the weather from a talking oven
14:22club with a face on it. Hello. Yeah. Glenn Beck might cry on air but does he appear in a neck brace laughing nihilistically
14:30at all the torment in the world like this. Oh no. Anyway the recession or money getting as we like to call it has remained
14:41top of the news agenda all the time. We've been on air. It's involved a lot of tricky concepts. The news has had to try and
14:46explain to us. Here's how they dealt with quantitative easing. Every day has been baffling new terminology to learn with the
14:53latest being quantitative easing. The Bank of England's recent attempt to stop the economy tumbling into a great big bin full of
14:59bums. Now unless you speak fluent jargon it's not immediately clear what quantitative easing actually is. In fact as Newsnight
15:08found out when they hit the streets to ask human beings even Brainiac Moss from the I.T. crowd doesn't know what it is.
15:15The easing of quantitativeness. Thank God then that the news is on hand to describe exactly what quantitative easing is in easy to
15:25follow metaphorical steps. Put simply quantitative easing is a tool for fixing a blockage in an economy that isn't running
15:33smoothly. There you go. It's a sort of spanner made of money. How does it work. Well I suppose you twist it into the stock market.
15:40It's like creating money out of thin air or filling up a petrol tank with imaginary petrol. That is what most economists agree is
15:50needed to get any recovery started. God he isn't making any sense. What I need is someone who can't help but speak in profoundly
15:59simple terms. Welcome to 5 News. I'm Natasha Kapinski who I'm preemptively chuckling because I reckon she's about to tell us it's
16:07designed to encourage the banks and us to get lending and spending. It is designed to encourage the banks and us to get lending and
16:15spending. Our chief correspondent John Samuels investigates whether these measures will help an economy that's been going off the rails.
16:23Why Natasha that almost sounds like a cue for a bad railway metaphor. The economy at the moment seems to be like a runaway train. Great. All
16:33right. Let's see you run with this one. The government's been pulling lots of levers behind the scenes to try and slow down the economic
16:40crisis. But it's got to such a stage now that they're trying a different track. Just tell me how it works. It's called quantitative easing.
16:49The idea is to pump more money into the economy and get banks lending again to the economy. We once had a model economy. The government
16:59hopes the latest measures will mean we soon see light at the end of the tunnel. Now far be it from me to want to fart in your sleeping bag or
17:07anything. But statistically speaking it's quite likely that some of you watching the programme this evening will at some point in your lives die.
17:15But famous people die too if that's any consolation. And the news doesn't always know how to cope with it when that happens. Here's an excerpt from a
17:23piece we did on the death of Jade Goody. The coverage of Jade Goody's death was hardly about death or Jade at all. Instead it was about the news media
17:31having a collective self-perpetuating bun fight. Take the tabloid papers which having hurled buckets of misogynist abuse or eye-swiveling rage over
17:39Jade for years suddenly had to perform a U-turn so huge it was visible from space and start gushing with cliched tabloid speak about inspiring
17:47bravery. It was almost as though the press felt guilty for treating her badly in the past. Although of course the press doesn't feel anything. It just wants to sell more
17:53papers. That's why they willingly put her on the front cover as often as possible veering into astronomical bad taste in a way that would simply alarm other
18:01cancer sufferers. And when they didn't have a photo they simply made one up. Take this astonishing Daily Star front page from the 18th of February which as
18:09Private Eye pointed out is actually a photoshopped version of this more jubilant photograph taken a year ago when Jade still had hair. It's amazing to think
18:17somebody actually did that. Somebody actually sat there spending hours photoshopping out that hair giving Jade retrospective cancer to sell their f***ing paper.
18:25And I think the press has the temerity to moan whenever TV gets accused of faking things. What twats. Speaking of things that want photoshopping look at Peter Cushing here
18:33aka Carol Malone. Here's someone who had to change her tune quicker than an iPod shuffle. Having berated Jade for 200 years in her shit and nasty newspaper columns
18:43suddenly she was conducting sympathetic interviews with her before taking to the newsstands on March the 8th to say it was time to turn the cameras off Jade asking
18:51Is it just me who's starting to feel like the spectre at the feasts? Although I think she meant look not feel. Luckily for Carol before they turned the cameras off she
18:59had time to appear in a Morkish ITV Tonight special the very next night. She made headlines without thinking and she was perfect. Of course the tabloids weren't the only ones jammed
19:09full of Jade. No the self appointed quality press got in on the act too. They ran plenty of chin stroking or what does it all mean pieces on the cultural meaning of Jade's
19:17suffering. There was a lot of old woe betide of intellectual masturbation which sometimes veered over into outright snobbery such as in Rod Liddle's bizarre venomous article
19:27for The Spectator. I've tried to think of something clever to say about Rod Liddle but he just comes across as a cunt. Throughout the depressing blanket coverage Jade was
19:37repeatedly referred to as a star of reality TV which she was although it's more accurate to say she was a star of reality TV and news.
19:46After all in her final weeks taken accumulatively she made far more appearances on front pages and news broadcasts than in her living TV specials.
19:54Sally what's the latest that you've been able to discover about Jade's condition? The populist news broadcast had exciting live updates filling us in on each fresh development as and when it happened often
20:04displaying characteristic tact. We're also hearing that perhaps the cancer has spread to her brain. What's the latest on that Rachel?
20:13They also repeatedly looped footage of her being wheeled to an ambulance. Footage with a cheery watermark in the top right corner marking it the property of Mr Paparazzi the brainchild of
20:21fatuous Mel Smith lookalike and almighty human arse cheek Darren Lyons. Seen here on Sky News Gidley commenting on a comment of the sort of press coverage he's a part of.
20:29It's a superb read and I would love everyone to have a look at this today. And which I'm now commenting on. This whole thing is a crazy endless feedback loop.
20:39Of course when the sad news actually arrived it was broken dramatically live and we were treated to real time spalling footage from outside her house which we were told was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
20:49This is not any kind of intrusion. This was followed by a motive coverage of well-wishers leaving flowers. It has in this corner of Essex been a sombre Mother's Day.
20:59And the occasional talking head overstating at good points to a frankly embarrassing degree. I think for people she's become a saint, a princess, an exemplar of biblical proportions.
21:10Yes she's the patron saint of celebrity perfume ranges. None of it seemed real. Not the gaudy tabloid front pages, not the garish ads for tribute magazines published before she'd even died.
21:21OK magazine special tribute issue with wonderful memories of Jade. Out now.
21:26Not the tributes from establishment figures who, let's be fair, were only answering questions they'd been asked by the press.
21:32In the end, Jade Goody died on the biggest reality show going. Not Big Brother or some living TV special, but the news. After all, with its jaunty titles and its easy hate figures, its selective storytelling and its stupid viewer votes, it's a hair's breadth from being a multi-platform I'm a Celebrity spin-off.
21:50In fact, all it needs next is a special live edition where Gordon Brown has to eat a witchetty grub or something to win the next election and then the circle's complete. And then just before the world ends, we can all enjoy a quick look back at some of our best bits.
22:03You know, when I started doing this series, I thought, hey, this will be a good self-improvement exercise. I'll watch loads of broadcasts and I'll know what's going on in the world. But all it's done actually is depress me because the news is so flippin' horrible.
22:16We believe, from what the police officer was telling us, that he killed his 74-year-old grandmother, also his mother, his uncle, his cousin, his 15-year-old second cousin. In addition, he killed a baby, he killed a sheriff deputy's wife, he killed two pedestrians, he killed a petrol station assistant, he killed a motorist, he let loose seven rounds at a trooper, he shot the chief of police and he shot himself.
22:45We'll let you digest that for a moment.
22:47Which isn't to say the world itself is horrible. I mean, it's still full of sunshine and flowers and cuddly creatures you'd like to have sex with, like this rabbit. Oh, look at that rabbit.
22:58Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is there's generally more good than bad in the world, unless you're watching the news, which likes to accentuate the negative at every turn.
23:07For instance, a few weeks ago at a homecoming parade for Ah Boys, a small group of 15-20 Islamist protesters kicked up a stink by wobbling a load of antagonistic placards around and loudly decrying Western imperialism from behind a line of Western imperialists defending their right to shout about the system that was permitting them to shout.
23:25If you see what I mean.
23:27Predictably, the protest outrage sung well-wishers so much, things quickly turned ugly.
23:33Before long, two people were arrested, one for climbing on top of a supermarket and throwing a packet of bacon at the protesters.
23:39So a tiny minority of another minority tried to stir up some outrage and there's two arrests. Not a huge deal. Except the news thought differently, of course.
23:48To the news, it was a huge deal. It provided dramatic material for news bulletins, fantastic emotive copy for populist tabloid headlines and a great starting point for countless hours of confused debate on shows like Banal Morning, Guffstorm, The Right Stuff.
24:02Steve, what's your feelings on this?
24:03Well, I totally think it's bad that they tried to protest and basically...
24:10And shorter bursts of simplistic yes-no debate on decisive Sky News.
24:16Hello? Yes, I think probably... Hello?
24:21Meanwhile, radical cleric Anjum Chowdhury, who heads the group that arranged the protest, was all over cosy GMTV, enjoying the publicity and their comfy sofa.
24:31And the reality is, you see, that if we had this demonstration at another time when the parade was not taking place, it probably wouldn't have got the coverage that it's got and I wouldn't be here now talking about it.
24:40Anjum, you've certainly got us all going this morning. There's been a lot of dialogue and dialogue has to be considered a good thing, I guess. Thank you very much.
24:46It's good that you've come and talked to us about it.
24:48Yes, thanks, Anjum. Now, would you like an Infidel biscuit? Mmm, they're lovely.
24:53There was also another parade scheduled to take place that day, which the news excitedly cut to.
24:58But wouldn't you know it, when the moment of truth came, the Watford march passed off without incident and the news was left without a story.
25:04Parade, let's have a listen and see what's going on down there.
25:08No, no, don't be shaggy baby killers. This is boring. Fuck it.
25:12Still, while there wasn't even the tiniest protest in Watford, there was a huge protest taking place in Northern Ireland where thousands of demonstrators were taking to the streets in the name of peace.
25:23Yes, that's thousands of protesters coming together to demonstrate against the recent upsurge in Republican violence.
25:30So surely if 15 to 20 protesters in Luton gets a lot of coverage, surely thousands of protesters in Northern Ireland is going to get even more, right?
25:37Right.
25:39Tonight at ten, a mass shooting at a school in Germany leaves 16 people dead.
25:44Yes, because on the same day as the peace demonstration, a lone maniac in Germany went berserk with a gun, killing 16 people.
25:50This senseless tragedy provided material for news reports for days to follow.
25:55First, there were the initial dramatic breakdowns detailing precisely how the carnage unfolded.
26:00There was grim voyeuristic mobile phone footage of the gunman's last moments and a chilling reconstruction of a warning he apparently posted on the internet.
26:08He typed these words, everybody's laughing at me. No one sees my potential. I'm serious.
26:15Which later turned out to be almost certainly false, incidentally.
26:18The aftermath in Vinlanden proved so compelling for the vulture-like rolling news stations, they even filled airtime showing things that weren't happening yet.
26:25Two days later, even footage from an old ping-pong tournament in which the back of the gunman's head was vaguely visible was still considered news.
26:33The latest pictures of Kretschmar show him playing table tennis, his favourite sport.
26:38And three days later, even worse footage pixelated to the point where it looked like a broadcast from the f***ing Lego dimension. Well, that was considered news too.
26:46In the video, Kretschmar is shown taking part in an arm wrestling contest in Rottenburg last year.
26:52Yeah, I think if I squint I can just about make out the face of a killer. Isn't the news brilliant?
26:57Repeatedly showing us a killer's face isn't news, it's just rubbernecking.
27:01And what's more, this sort of coverage only serves to turn this murdering little twat into a sort of nihilistic pin-up boy.
27:08One thing the news kept plaintively asking was why this had happened.
27:12Why? What had triggered in the mind of a seemingly normal teenager such fury and alienation?
27:18Well, if you want to know why, why not ask a forensic psychiatrist?
27:22We've had 20 years of mass murders, throughout which I have repeatedly told CNN and our other media,
27:29if you don't want to propagate more mass murders, don't start the story with sirens blaring.
27:37The school day had only just begun when the attacker struck.
27:41Don't have photographs of the killer.
27:43The 17-year-old's three-hour rampage ended in his own death.
27:47Don't make this 24-7 coverage.
27:50The German Chancellor is about to give her reaction, we'll bring that to you live.
27:54Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story.
28:00Carnage in the classroom, 16 people are dead.
28:04Not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero.
28:08Dressed in black combat gear, the gunman opened fire at random.
28:12Do localize this story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market.
28:19Because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.
28:26But we have, but I mean, hold on a second here.
28:28In summary then, not only does bad news always trump good news, but that bad news might itself actually help create more bad news.
28:35Which is good news, if you're the news.
28:39Jesus Christ. Anyway, that's the end of this special compilation show, which was scheduled for next week.
28:45Instead, next week we've got a whole brand new episode.
28:49That is a treat. Yes, that's good, isn't it?
28:53Until then, that's all we've got time for. Go away.
28:58And Charlie's back with another brand new episode of Newswipe next Wednesday at half past ten.
29:08Next tonight, here on BBC4, Marcus Brigstocke puts Nigel Haver's metal to the test in I've Never Seen Star Wars.