I received my Time Europe newsletter today and one of the main stories that it covers is the the recent Belgium Beer crisis. The basis of the crisis is about job losses vs.. corporate debt.
Having visit Belgium many times and still having connections with it, I wondered why the BBC had not featured this story more prominently on its news website or on the BBC news broadcasts? I know I can’t watch everything but I thought I would have heard more about this than a fleeting news article (can’t remember the channel) some days ago.
It still amazes me how much European news seems to be left aside by the mainstream news media such as the BBC and Sky, except of course when the ‘bashing’ seems to start.
Here’s screen snaps of today’s BBC Europe News page.
Despite the BBC having a special page dedicated to Northern Ireland (NI), the lead article is about NI, yes NI is part of the UK and we are part of Europe, but is this just laziness to repeat a story for the sake of it.
When you look at the rest of the page, there are at least 8 other stories relating to the UK, why when there is a already a special UK page where most of the stories are already shown.
I checked other online sites, Sky, Euro News and ITV – what a waste that was, but again not any real focus on European news, especially the Belgium Beer crisis.
However, the UK daily newspapers do seem to have covered this story reasonably well. The Times with a story about Brewery Managers being held hostage!, The Telegraph went with Belgium Beers shortages. While the ‘Gruniad’ shows nothing at all in its search results. Even Channel Four news site had nothing.
It always surprises me that despite the fact that we live only 22 miles from one of the biggest land masses in the world, how uninterested the BBC and other news organisations seems in everyday stories about Europe. I am sure if a minor celebrity had fallen over at the recent USA awards show, it would have been front page news on the BBC and Sky!
Come on BBC – and other mainstream TV news , wake up and get your European reporting sorted out.
Beasley's Place 