News

The past couple of days have seen interesting developments in pursuit of purportrators of terror. This has included the killing of a suspect on a London tube train, which to me is quite disturbing, that our police now have the power to shoot and kill suspects on the spot. In fact watching the news today has been somewhat like watching an episode of 24, but from the public perspective - just imagining a Jack Bauer character chasing these terrorists.

Which brings me to something I mentioned earlier - what is happening to the reporting of news? At the moment as soon as a major incident occurs the BBC are asking for pictures and video footage from mobiles to be sent to them, instantly there are reporters on the scene interviewing eye witnesses, and thus the eyewitnesses accounts of affairs become a kind of fact or truth in the public eye. These accounts are retold without emphasis on the effect of circumstance on interpreting events. Quite dangerous. Is it just our own insatiable desire to know everything that is hapening in such exceptional circumstances that fuels this? i must admit as soon as I hear of such a story I'm either turning to the TV for 24 hour news coverage or going to the bbc website.

Why is it that we like to be in the know?