This Is The News

 

You know that there are statistics

waiting to be displayed

when a BBC reporter

stands to the left of a brick wall -

and when the report’s about finance

and they’re stood out in the rain,

you know they’re going to make a pun

about saving for a rainy day.

 

When did the news become a vehicle

for cheap shots and sound-bites?

Where young reporters wink, knowingly,

when they deliver the punch-line -

and just who the fuck

Is that screaming female

who shouts unanswered questions

to the visitors to Downing Street?

 

When it comes to statistics

who are we to believe

when both sides lose

yet both sides claim they won the day?

When some ‘expert’ in the field

of swings and roundabouts

tells us it is clear

that the figures don’t lie.

 

Why is weather newsworthy

above the plight of starving children

or a third world war in Syria

(when we’ve had enough of that)

I couldn’t give a toss

about Becky from Basingstoke

who took her kids to Margate

to get their pale bodies roasted.

 

This is the news.

Entertainment

above facts,

personalities

above honest truths.

A sugar coated

mash up

of the lies and the lying.