Stephen Tall

If you’ve caught even a minute of the BBC News Channel’s tawdry tabloid coverage of the police’s hunt for Raoul Moat, you may have noticed the striking resemblance to The Day Today – broadcast an astonishing 16 years ago, and yet still as satirically astute as ever.

Here are some of its best bits:

That’s the funny stuff over and done with.

If like me you were repelled by the sight of Jon Sopel’s disgustingly mawkish and intrusive coverage – for example, ear-wigging on private telephone conersations between clearly distressed relatives – then you might want to do the following … issue a complaint to the BBC in the hope they will exercise better, more sensitive, editorial judgment in future:

Invasion of privacy by Jon Sopel and BBC News Channel’s live coverage of the hunt for ‘Gunman Moat’
The BBC has just finished broadcasting live on air (c.8.30 pm) without consent the private telephone conversation of a member of the public with a woman who was clearly distressed. This was a gross invasion of privacy by the BBC and its reporter Jon Sopel, and utterly inapproriate and sensationalist journalism.