> > That means that a top story is always 103, whilst the fifth most > > important story is always 107. > This is not correct. Page 102 lists the stories in 'most > important' order, > viz: > http://www.ceefax.tv/txtmaster.php?page=101&subpage=0&channel= > bbc1&search_st > ring=101&fontsize=2 > The order shown right now is 107 113 104 108 109 110 116 124
Getting my pages mixed up slightly - 101 is the main headlines - akin I suppose to the main BBC News homepage (and indeed the ordering is very similar). Meanwhile 102 is a mixture of UK and World News - although in an editorial order. Meanwhile, 103 is actually a summary page :) However, the stories do still move around ;0) > > What's important here is that the definition of what's the > top story > > will change during the day - maybe even during the hour. And > > naturally it's all automated, based on the editorial priorities the > > editor of the section decides (and priorities are made cross > > platform), which can change in a matter of minutes. > Yes. I proposed that the pool of numbers expands to around 300. Which would be fine for digital platforms, although you couldn't really do it until you get to a point where Ceefax has gone. The thing is about page numbers is that they've grown essentially out of a technical necessisty rather than a unique identifier. For "analogue" text services (which are of course digital) the number is an ID - the only way to navigate. And you can only have so many numbers. So to increase the pool on Ceefax means losing other content elsewhere as you'd nick their numbers! > > As I understand it, the massive text (I like that term!) is > > manually > > edited into a graphics system - it's quicker and more flexible that > > way. > Again, it's only a question of the person in charge of the > MASSIVE text (it's about two a half inches high on my TV) > just needs to look up the right number. Which - it has to be said - is easier said than done, because the person doing the text is probably doing several other things at the same time and is unlikely to have time to spend to match the story on screen with what's going on in the content systems. > > Actually it's also rare that stories break online before TV > - that's > > mainly because it takes longer to write out a story than it does to > > quickly pick up a microphone and talk. > I do recall occasions where News 24 has been linked to the > "online studio" > and an important news story has been heard over the PA > system. I have often seen headlines appear on the > news.bbc.co.uk latest box and not appear on News 24 for some > time afterwards. It does happen - however the converse definitely is true. The number of times I've seen breaking news on News 24 and gone to the website and found nothing... Well it's more than once. And that is the nature of the beast. Online and TV journalism work in different ways which means it is harder (not impossible, but harder) to bring them together in a coherent way - especially when you're up against it time wise (as people in TV seem to always be!) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
