BBC News seeks new “walking around in the background guy”

BBC News has advertised for a new guy to walk around in the background during news broadcasts.

“Viewers often assume the people they see in the background are journalists, putting together bulletins for the newsreaders to read out,” said the BBC’s Head of People, Yolanda Kumquat.

“In fact, we keep them in a windowless room deep underground in another building. Scruffy, unshaven, living on coffee and cigarettes, haven’t showered in a week… we’d probably be shut down by Public Health if anyone ever saw them.

“So we hire much smarter looking people to walk around in the background during news broadcasts.”

Asked whether it was a difficult or demanding job, Kumquat admitted it isn’t really. “You just have to put on a suit and strut about looking important, holding documents you never actually read. We often use former Director Generals, as their experience fits them perfectly.”

image from pixabay

Mirror Group appeals phone hacking verdict before it's given

In what may prove to be a costly legal blunder, Mirror Group newspapers have launched an appeal against the verdict that they were guilty of phone hacking before it was given.

'One has to say, it does raise the question of how you could know what verdict I was going to hand down,' said the judge Mr Justice Bufton-Tufton today. 'Surely not because I mentioned it in a phone call to a colleague yesterday?'

Former editor of the Daily Mirror Piers Morgan had told the High Court that he 'had no idea mobile phones had been invented'.

'Ask anyone who’s worked with me, they’ll tell you I’ve got a grand old Bakelite telephone on my desk and at home, I’ve got one of those Laurel and Hardy phones with a separate earpiece.

'Naturally I did wonder about these glass and metal rectangles I saw people on the train staring at, or even talking into, but I never made the connection that they might be phones of some kind. I mean, where’s the cord?!?'

His protestations seemed to carry little weight with Mr Justice Bufton-Tufton, who said 'For pity’s sake, man, I’ve heard of them and I’m a High Court judge.'

The Mirror Group strenuously denied any wrongdoing, adding that the judge was an idiot not to have changed his phone passcode from the factory default setting.

'Anyway, I’m sure he wouldn’t want us to publish details of the young female barrister he phoned several times last week, or the Uber he took to her flat on Wednesday night, when his wife thought he was away at a legal conference.'

The judge then issued a revised verdict, clearing the Mirror Group of all past wrongdoings and even giving them a pre-emptive amnesty for their next three crimes.

Image: Newsbiscuit

What do you mean, you’ve had enough of the horrendous, sickening news?

'And as the conflict in Israel and Gaza enters its fourth week, we now bring you pictures of the carnage caused by an Israeli airstrike. And we can tell you that they're even more distressing than anything we’ve shown you before...

'Why are you turning off your television?

'Good, we’ve got you on the radio. These are the sounds from inside a hospital in Gaza City of grief-stricken mothers and fathers, wailing pitifully…

'Why are you hitting your radio with an axe? That’s not going to stop the war, is it?

'I see you’ve locked yourselves in the bathroom and are watching a video of an adorable puppy chasing its tail. We’re going to interrupt that to play you interviews with a Hamas leader and an Israeli politician, in which both try to justify slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians…

'No, don’t throw your device down the toilet. We forbid you to do that!

'And don’t light a bonfire with those newspapers before you've read them. Don’t you know how much trouble we take to bring all the horrifying details of this war right to your doorstep?

'We’ll stop at nothing, you know. We’ll hire town criers to shout this stuff at you in the streets.

'That's because reporting this atrocious conflict has made us all clinically depressed, so we’re damned well going to make sure that all of you are clinically depressed, as well.'

Image: voidx Photos | FreeImages