"Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."
Aw, the welcoming words at the beginning of Listen With Mother on the wireless a few decades ago.
It's a phrase that should be resurrected for use on television now. Not on CBeebies, but as an introduction to the evening news. Just after the migraine-inducing graphics reveal a cluttered studio with Huw Edwards sitting at his shiny desk (is it just me who thinks that the reflection of his shirt and tie on the table-top, makes it look as though his fly is open?), the avuncular newsreader would invite us all to bunch in and enjoy a lovely story or two.
Seriously, news editors should just be honest and fess up that they are frustrated Brothers Grimm, eager to create narratives peopled with goodies, baddies, acts of evil and packed with speculation rather than facts.
Ian Brady's mental health tribunal this week is a prime example. It should have been a minor story placed way down the news running order. Instead, serious journalists, as if with the wave of a magic wand, were transformed into children's story-tellers, weaving tales of the bad man giving evidence in the dock. They were, and I quote: "spellbound ... hanging onto his every word ... we were able to watch Brady, in a black suit on three screens.. his notoriety and the fact that he had been out of sight for half a century, made it fascinating viewing."
This is Jackanory, not journalism. Scaremongering because the facts are dull: psychopathic murderer wants to leave hospital for prison. He also craves attention. Oh, and he's aged over the last 47 years.
This obsession with storytelling to fill up airtime and replace the truth is everywhere. Look at the facts about Andy Murray. Supremely talented tennis player is plunged into the media glare at a young age. He concentrates on his sport rather than courting the press, so he's labelled "sullen". A few years later, he cries in public (which he's done before, but not in the UK, so that doesn't count) and now "the nation has taken him to its heart".
So please listen to Wicked Witch Forsyth - the infantilisation of the news will continue - literally, with the impending Royal birth. So why don't you switch off and try some rather more demanding fiction. I hear Sir Walter Scott is very good.
Talking of which, you can immerse yourself in the world of that master of the genre, when Sir Walter Scott's Borders gaffe, Abbotsford House, opens on July 4, after being closed for two years. After extensive refurbishment of the house, which is still ongoing, it is hoped that visitors will travel from all over the world to visit and get a better understanding of the man who was in his time a global literary star.
As well as a library of thousands of books, there are Scott's antique curios to examine, including Rob Roy's broadsword. Perfect entertainment for a rainy school holiday.
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