Text on Text

I remember a statistic a few years ago that said sport pages were actually more popular than news pages on teletext. This doesn't really surprise me. Most teletext services devote about 100 pages to sport. Consider that in comparison to TV, were sport will get five minutes at the end of the news, alot of which is eaten up by an egomaniac "bantering" at the camera and anchorpersons. Even newspapers, good ones anyway, give comparatively little credence to sport as a subject. When you consider news, however, the BBC actually uses the first three paragraphs of it's web reports for Ceefax. Which can lead to some incomplete stories, although to be fair, that seems to be less of a problem than it used to be. Anyway the point is, teletext can't really be said to offer a more complete news service than the TV or papers. Though I would argue at certain points when one story (celebrity death, election etc) monopolises the aforementioned mediums, teletext comes into it's own as it can deal with these subjects and many more.

Largely though, unless I was pressed for time, teletext wouldn't be my main news source. Artel is a prime example of why this should be. I know they are an Irish service but their coverage of Gordon Brown taking power was extremely basic. "Brown to take over UK labour post," actually been known for several weeks now, some would say years. Actually, it's a bit of a nothing story but it highlights how little detail you are likely to get in just 60-odd words. Much of the time reading the headlines is just as informative as heading the article. As I said, very convenient if your in a rush but I would still wouldn't recommend it as primary news source.

Sport on the other hand, doesn't really need massive depth. It can be well covered in 100-odd pages. It can also cover the more unglamorous sports that generally get overlooked on the news except on the big occasions, eg tennis and Wimbledon, golf and Ryder Cup. It's also probably the section that comes closest to being the "electronic magazine" teletext was often branded as. Someone with a general interest in sport could probably happily waste an hour or so flicking through the entire section. Whilst it does offer quite alot of news, alot of sport, especially football, is rumour and conjecture. For what are undoubtedly serious socio-physcological reasons, that is much more interesting than bare fact. But largely opinion and news, even rumoured news, are kept separate.

Teletext (the company which provides ITV and chanel fours teletext services) has often been accused of right-wing bias in terms of news. I can't really say I've noticed this. It's fairly hard to insert bias in a 60 word article. I would perhaps concede that more right-wing issues are covered. It's not nearly as bad as the sensationalist tribe you get on ITV television news mind you. They probably do play to their audience a little though, which contains a high proportion of conservative pensioners. I wouldn't say they are the majority, not least because it scares me a little, but they seem to be ones who vote in the polls and phone in their opinions. They bring in the bacon so to speak, or mow in the moolah to be ether more or less tabloidy.I'm not sure.

Apart from aforementioned problems with the internet link, ceefax news is rather good for news, although not nearly as good as the BBC website which seems to have stored every article written since the millennium. On Ceefax I would recommend the Sci-Tech News on page 154. Alot of stories that should be on the front page of newspapers, but the potential cure for cancer isn't important because it doesn't involve a dead royal or a much hated Prime Minister. There is also about 20 different news stories on view at any one time which is useful in times of one-story televised news, an increasingly common occurrence. The In-Depth section also provides an answer to my own above criticism that you can't get much detail into tiny little teletext articles. "The Ceefax Files" they are called. Seems a little light-hearted when it's about the London bombings or a misssing toddler but a bit of humour is needed in the news sometimes. Not morning-news bantery humour mind, but something along these lines. Ceefax is sometimes accused of a left-wing bias, but that's because thanks to FOX news, those on the right-wing think everyone is out to get them. They aren't wrong, it's just everyone is lying about Iraq, Afghanistan, corruption and incompetence. Or at least they are reporting it when they shouldn't, that's a favorite of Bill O'Reily, which is both amusing to hear from a journalist and depressing that so many watch and believe him.

Veering back on topic, there is wholly separate entertainment news on Ceefax. It exists on the Teletext services too, but is generally split up into music, film and theatre news rather than being nicely clumped together. It covers a rather wide variety of stories in reality. It seems to make an effort to be different from your average celebrity gossip monger style. So we get alot of news on dead composers and opera singers. Well news of their deaths, typically afterwards there isn't much news about them. Celebrities in court is another favorite. George Micheal and Pete Doherty being the luckiest to grace to pages most often. This has attacted some critcism, as death and celebrity crime shouldn't be judged as entertaining news. But that is misconstruing the point and ,well, changing the title. Entertainment news doesn't mean news for your entertainment, it means the news of people in the entertainment industry. If it were the former, it would be a dismal failure as many of the stories are rather dry. In the role of the latter, however, it can be judged a success and does provide a service. It should really be judged as an extension of the news service, not the news part of the entertainment section. Of course the placing of it, at p501, at the start of the entertainment pages contradicts this.

So is teletext is a good news? Well, with a slightly unconventional analogy I would say it's a bit like a massive table that sits only two inches below the roof. You can put alot on the table, but not much of it. You might not eat your dinner of it but you can keep the crisps there. If your looking for another wide but shallow analogy, may I suggest Beth Ditto.