A shortage of knitting

This is a figurative comment; whether there is a shortage of true knitting I wouldn't know.  Let's hope not. The comment is a reference to one of the very few useful things that management 'gurus' [sic] have ever said, namely Tom Peters' advice to business to 'stick to the knitting' i.e. stick to what they know.

What, you ask, has this to do with Wombles? Well, it is connected to Wombles via - (somewhat implausibly) Newsnight.  Yes, Newsnight, the late evening BBC2 current affairs programme where issues in the news get a closer examination and, from time to time, politicians get grilled, turned over and grilled some more.  Newsnight, which got into trouble recently over the investigation-into-Jimmy-Savile-that-wasn't. Yes, that Newsnight.

You might think Newsnight has more important things to discuss than the Wombles (even though we all know they are important).  Apparently not. The other night, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast on BBC1 of the original Wombles TV series, Newsnight closed with a clip from the Wombles - and a comment from presenter Kirsty Wark that 'surprisingly, [they] weren't strangled at birth'. You can see it here.

This led to a number of complaints, some on the inevitable Twitter, including one from Mike Batt. Eventually Kirsty Wark apologised and explained the remark had been a joke.  I'm grateful to Tidybag for collating the various tweets here.

We do, of course, live in a ridiculous 24/7 news-eat-news culture where news is no longer news, but news which is going to be news ('The Government is set to announce...') or news of people commenting on other people's comments on something ('David Cameron has said that Hilary Mantel is wrong about...'). But I am still bound to ask:

1. Why was Newsnight discussing the Wombles at all? OK, it was a significant anniversary of a TV broadcast - but of a light entertainment programme.  If any late night BBC2 programme should mark such things, it's The Culture Show.

2. What on earth did Kirsty Wark think she was doing? Why would the BBC introduce a clip of one of its own programmes in order for a presenter to make a rude remark about it (ahem, sorry, 'joke')?

Some people will condemn this as another example of modern TV journalists editorialising when they should be reading a script. There might be a grain of truth in that. But I wonder if it's just one more symptom of a news culture which no longer has any discipline. You're a serious news and current affairs programme, Newsnight, so stick to the knitting. And Kirsty: next time you think a joke is a good idea... just shut up, eh?