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by Incandenza
This is a non story, blown out of all proportion because the old woman in question was a member of the lucky sperm brigade.

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Sounds like something a writer for The Sun would use.....

Anyway, I digress. As much as I find the whole thing boring, I recognise that, to a large section of society, this is a newsworthy event and hence the coverage it's getting. To be honest, I thought there would have been a lot more on the television about it.

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by Pegasus
... the Queen Mum who has been a pillar in holding some of them together.

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Hmm, however, there are those that believe that she was one of the main driving forces behind the thrown, influencing
the break-up of several of the prominent marriages.

Also, with all that money, why on earth didn't they do something about her awful teeth? *shudder*

Anyone offended by the phrase 'Lucky sperm brigade' should feel free to substitute the following:

'Fortunate beneficiary of a system of hereditary monarchy whereby the most privileged achieve their position and accompanying wealth based not on merit but on genetic precedent.'

From the start, I’ve not disputed the fact that the death of the Queen Mother has affected a considerable number of people deeply, who, for a variety of reasons, felt a deep affection for her. This cannot, and should not, be ignored by news media catering for the entire population.

But again we come back to what a response proportionate to the events should be. The sheer weight of coverage directed at the Queen Mother’s death is quite frankly ridiculous. In excess of 20-newspaper-pages solely devoted to her (at the expense of other news) has not been uncommon. And that’s not beginning to count the pre-prepared glossy-supplements.

And accuse me of cynicism if you will, but there’s no small measure of self-interest on the part of the papers. Sales can be massively increased over the next weeks, and the proprietors know it. The gloriously produced “souvenir editions” turn my stomach – however you want to dress it, this is profiting from someone’s death. They’ve literally been planning this for years, and it most definitely shows. (The BBC even codenamed it “operation Lion”!)

I’d turn the proposition “you can find the news elsewhere” on its head: there is an abundance of information concerning the life of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon out there already, with plenty more sure to be swiftly on its way. People’s lives are being torn to pieces in the Middle-East (and elsewhere) now, and public awareness of what’s happening, so pressure can be directed at the respective Western governments to act, needs to be maintained. They’re called newspapers for a reason.

To continue to bury it to keep up sales, to make the judgement that the death of this particular 101-year-old woman is currently more important than hundreds of unnamed others, strikes me as wrong.

(Edited by Byron 01/04/2002 21:47)

In no particular order and meaning no criticism or challenge of anyone:

I don't think that the fact the BBC had its coverage planned can be read too far into..... obituaries are written and updated so that papers etc aren't caught on the hop as it were by unexpected deaths. The plans in the event of deaths of royals and senior politicians are probably well advanced, it's only sensible forward thinking.

Thousands lining up to sign condolence books do not constitute "grieving millions", and personally I'm fed up with being lumped together under such cliches as "she was everyone's favourite granny" and "the whole country will be mourning the loss".

I find it mawkish that the press are there to record the Royal Family going to a private service at church... are they hoping to film the Queen and Prince of Wales in floods of tears?? I dislike the Royal Family intensely, but I still think that they should be afforded some privacy and peace at this time... alright, I admit, partly out of respect for any human being, and partly because I don't want to watch wall to wall coverage of it.

At least... at least... there hasn't been the public hysteria that swept the nation when that woman died.... at least.....

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by Vix
In no particular order and meaning no criticism or challenge of anyone:

I don't think that the fact the BBC had its coverage planned can be read too far into..... obituaries are written and updated so that papers etc aren't caught on the hop as it were by unexpected deaths. The plans in the event of deaths of royals and senior politicians are probably well advanced, it's only sensible forward thinking.

Thousands lining up to sign condolence books do not constitute "grieving millions", and personally I'm fed up with being lumped together under such cliches as "she was everyone's favourite granny" and "the whole country will be mourning the loss".

I find it mawkish that the press are there to record the Royal Family going to a private service at church... are they hoping to film the Queen and Prince of Wales in floods of tears?? I dislike the Royal Family intensely, but I still think that they should be afforded some privacy and peace at this time... alright, I admit, partly out of respect for any human being, and partly because I don't want to watch wall to wall coverage of it.

At least... at least... there hasn't been the public hysteria that swept the nation when that woman died.... at least.....

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The BBC's obsession with the Queen Mother's death is well doccumented - they used to hold "D[eath]-day" (sick much?) drills regularly, and originally planned to curtail vertually all programming for the next few weeks to broadcast continual retrospectives. (Thankfully this was realised last year to be untennable.)

Intrusion of privacy is a very good point: we know she's died, and there's nothing wrong with an appropriate number of obituaries and retrospectives. But someone please tell me why we require blow-by-blow intrusive coverage meticulously detailing every stage of the Royal family's grieving and the funeral process. At the expense of what's becoming increasingly closer to all-out-war in the Middle-East. (Exemplified perfectly the other day by a long-delayed interview with a Palestinian commentator being curtailed mid-flow to show Charles and the Princes getting off a plane and driving away.)

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by Pegasus
(quotes)What actually disappointed me on the news coverage was hours after the Queen Mother had died was the way in which one news broadcast were trying to compare *public turnout* with that of Princess Diana's mourning and funeral - a bit heartless trying to portray her death as a competition for public affection

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This may be somewhat American of me, since we're considered to be a nation of self-promoters, but is the "competition for public affection" such an outlandish idea? Is it possible that the queen, seeing as how she probably loved her mother a whole lot more than a former daughter-in-law who created no end of trouble for the monarchy, would like to see a bigger, or at least comparable fuss, made?

I'm sure Elizabeth would probably like a more dignified show of support than the events surrounding Diana's death because she's not a flamboyant kind of gal. But is it possible at all that this is being viewed, either by the throne or the press, as some kind of public mandate on what now appeals to the British public in their monarchs? i.e. the sturdy old lady who did her duty without whining during Britain's time of crisis, or the pretty young woman who balked at "duty," but with whom people sympathized.

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by Diandra
(quotes)

This may be somewhat American of me, since we're considered to be a nation of self-promoters, but is the "competition for public affection" such an outlandish idea? Is it possible that the queen, seeing as how she probably loved her mother a whole lot more than a former daughter-in-law who created no end of trouble for the monarchy, would like to see a bigger, or at least comparable fuss, made?

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I think that the kind of public grief exhibited then will not be repeated (thank goodness)
The difference of course being that, yes, Diana was a massively popular public figure, but the main reason for such a big display was surprise. She was a young woman in the prime of her life, who just days before had been photographed by the popular press having a holiday. Next minute.. gone.
Also, no major Royal had died in years, and I think that as with many celebrities, people get the idea that they are somehow indestructable.
The Queen Mother, on the other hand, was a very elderly woman whom people had been expecting to pop off for years. Every time she was seen, she was a little more tiny and frail.
The Royal family have been on the wane for some years now. Many people find them irrelevant. This, I think, has been demonstrated by the relative lack of public interest in the deaths of both the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.

As for the earlier point about pre-arranged coverage, this was fairly obvious. Half an hour after the death was announced, pre-recorded interviews with public figures were being broadcast.

Just as a footnote - did you know that "Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother" was a title that the lady in question invented for herself, which the current Queen allowed to appease her mother, who was deeply unimpressed at the idea of being sidelined.

LOL... on this point - I have a terrible habit of reading words incorrectly... in the Observer on Sunday they made this point, saying how the title was honorific... which in my early morning stupor I read as horrific perhaps I didn't get it so wrong after all??

Two ends of the spectrum in terms of media perspective:

The Daily Mail is calling for the retraction of the licence fee from the BBC because of their 'scant' coverage and their inability to speak for the nation.

The Morning Star yesterday devoted one whole paragraph to the story, 19 words in total.

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by Red
There *is* a crisis in the Middle East. I think we all know that by now. There is also a lot of other things happening around the world and in our own country.

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Agreed!

To be perfectly honest, I don't want to read about more war. I'm fed up of war war war. I'd rather read about the Queen Mother than more Middle East conflict. Not that I read papers anyway I'm just saying.... if I did... y'know.

I love the Morning Star...what was the headline? "Bloated Enemy of the Workers Still Dead?"

Reports of the level of mourning do seem to fluctuate - as far as I can ascertain there seemed to be a steady but not very sizable stream of mourners, most of them of an older generation, and a fair number of tourists. I would suggest that, while not very many people are exactly tapdancing, there is precisely that sense of "oh...well, no great surprise" that one gets upon hearing of the death of a very elderly and sick relative. She had, after all, been looking pretty moribund for quite some time...

On the "Diana effect" - I think there is certainly a loty to be said for the idea that the surprise of Diana's death, along with the fact that she was very active and a very skilled and frequent user of the media, helped to cause that insane outpouring of grief that ensued, but I think it may also have caused the rather muted feel of the nation at present. Simply put, I think we are collectively a) a bit mourned-out and b) slightly embarrassed about just how bloomin' ridiculous the Diana situation got.

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by Incandenza

The Daily Mail is calling for the retraction of the licence fee from the BBC because of their 'scant' coverage and their inability to speak for the nation.

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Apparantly they think it is an absolute scandal that only 3 and a half hours were devoted to news coverage of the death. I would've thought that that was more than adequate to say all that could possibly be said on the subject.

I like the fact that the Daily Mail considers itself to be a better judge of the nations opinions than anyone else. I know no-one who was grieved by the death of the Queen Mother, some people have expressed admiration for her life and mild sympathy for her immediate family. Having spent Saturday night with a group of people of varying ages and backgrounds the main concerns on the subject were the inevitable disruption of the TV schedules (endless plethora of journalists being interviewed by other journalists) and possible cancelation of the bank holiday football fixtures.

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by Tannhauser Simply put, I think we are collectively a) a bit mourned-out and b) slightly embarrassed about just how bloomin' ridiculous the Diana situation got.

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Typical - you read all the way through a long thread and someone posts what you want to say right at the end.

Since I was doing news for the Independent's website on the evening the story broke, I guess those of you who say there was too much coverage ought to be directing some of your complaints to me. Here's how the night panned out for me:

I reached the office at about 7pm, still blissfully unaware of what had happened, to find that the sports and business people, and my replacement (it was my last shift) had put the Press Association story on the site and linked to it from the front page. The Middle East was still top story, but it was an old story that hadn't been updated from the previous night.

I pushed the Queen Mother to the top of the front page and got an Associated Press pic of her in black to go with it, then put up a couple more AP stories (a chronology of her life and 'why the Brits love the Queen Mum') to go with it. I then built a special QM index page and added a couple more AP photos (one of her with a Union Jack, another from when she was younger).

At this stage, the pages from the actual paper were still dropping with regular news on them, but from the third editions that changed big time, with the first seven pages cleared out. By the fourths, at about 12.30am, that had grown to nine pages. We on the website didn't have anything in the can ready to roll, but obviously the paper did. Less than I was expecting, however, and probably less than the daily edition had planned.

Meanwhile, my Beloved Other Half was going through a similar process on the ITN website.

When I finished the night, the Indy's site had all its regular UK and foreign news, in much the same places on much the same pages, but it also had a temporary extra Queen Mother section with links to all that day's stories. There was a lot of coverage, but I don't think an excessive amount.

I drove home at about 3am, past Buckingham Palace. There were a couple of police vans and some coppers on foot, none of which would normally have been there. As far as I could see, there were almost no flowers and only one 'mourner'.

Since then, I've been too busy to look at the news - I don't know how extensive the coverage has been. But in general terms, I'd say that people mostly want to read about things they already know about and when someone's been in the public eye for 101 years that means there's an awful lot to write about. A lot's happened in that time and the Queen Mother is a handy way into writing about it. Papers have had obits and supplements on file for literally decades, being regularly updated, and part of the blanket coverage is due to their enthusiasm for finally making that work count for something.

It's worth noting that as of this moment, there is no reference to the Queen Mother on the front of the Indy's site.

Anyway, now you know a little of what it was like to be on the front line when the story broke. Next time you see me at a Nos, get me to tell you what it was like on the runway at RAF Northolt when Diana's coffin was brought back.

So, essentially, to please all of the people, we need to get the Queen playing football. In the Middle East.

Thank heavens for that. I thought it was going to be difficult...

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by Tannhauser
So, essentially, to please all of the people, we need to get the Queen playing football. In the Middle East.

Thank heavens for that. I thought it was going to be difficult...

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You know I think that "might" just work although I'm sure there would be someone saying it was a hand ball.


(Edited by Sweet-Sange 02/04/2002 13:31)

Since the weekend, the BBC has received more than 1,500 complaints about the level of coverage of this news story.

More than 850 people complained about disruption to BBC1 and BBC2 schedules with the early start of 'Arthur: King of the Britons' being the most mentioned grievance (slightly ironic that one) whilst the changes to Antiques Roadshow (this is clearly a pristine example of an aged ex-monarch) and Blackadder also got mentioned repeatedly.

Another 700 complained that there was far too much coverage with extended news bulletins and documentaries being focused on as excessive.

2 people have complained that there was not enough coverage, whilst 40 people phoned to say that the level of coverage was just right.

130 people phoned to complain about a lack of deference with Peter Sissons the principle culprit. Of these, several found the use of the new BBC logo featuring Ballet Dancers to be insensitive.

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by Tannhauser
we need to get the Queen playing football. In the Middle East.

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Jesus saves - but the Queen scores on the rebound

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by Random
(quotes)Jesus saves - but the Queen scores on the rebound

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Hand Ball