The death of news

Turning from his customary prose to rhyming verse, former BBC foreign correspondent and MP Martin Bell mourns the passing of “real journalism”. Authentic, old-fashioned news-chasing, he says, has given way to pseudo-news characterised by rumour, exploitation of private grief, fake sincerity and lip gloss for men. He casts today’s TV newspeople as performers who “prance and strut before a video wall”, choreographed by the circus masters of an entertainment-led television industry.