Saddam and Gomorrah

[Sweder]

'Playground' seems a wholly inappropriate place for a rant on this sensitive subject, but I need to get this off my chest. I've just written to Five Live - I have no doubt my e-mail won't make the airwaves - to complain about the ghoulish coverage of every one of Saddam's last moments this morning.

It all seems like self-important naval-gazing to me, and it stinks. Report the bloody news by all means; stop trying to embellish it. Here's what I wrote to the Beeb - I feel better now.

Phil (Williams), I'm moved to write this morning to berate the BBC for the mawkish 'coverage' of the execution of Saddam Hussain.

The state execution of this former dictator means a great deal to the families of those he had tortured and killed. But do we, the British people, really need minute by minute updates as to how much footage is currently being shown of his last moments? This is the downside of 'rolling news', the need to cram the airwaves with irrelevant minutiae. I presume this is because the powers that be in the news room assume we are all waiting with baited breath for the next morsel of salacious detail.

Newsflash: we're not.

Keep taking the tablets,
Sweder
Lewes
East Sussex