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Day With No News -- brilliant BBC news-footage remix

Cory Doctorow at 11:24 am Wed, May 14, 2008

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Flickr's Pixelsurgeon has remixed a bunch of BBC news-footage in which the anchors, having signed off, just look at one another with relief and sit silently waiting for the fade-out, calling the result, "The Day There Was No News." The effect is nothing short of wonderful.

Mr Jalopy adds, "Somehow, this silent newscast is more eerie than normal boombastic version of the days events." Link (Thanks, Mr Jalopy!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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  • Anonymous

    Very Koyanisquatsi!

  • Anonymous

    I agree with Cybergibbons – the wonderful Adam Buxton did this same thing a couple of years ago for Armando Iannucci’s Time Trumpet. Took me a little while to work out how he did it, given he opted not to use actual News 24 bloopers (that he had access to) and instead use clever editing and cropping.

    Both are pretty superb, mind.

  • Anonymous

    I think I saw this before on a BBC show called Time Trumpet.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Trumpet

  • Anonymous

    This has genuinely happened more recently than that time on Good Friday!!!

    I feel like I was the only one who saw it, I can’t find anything about it anywhere!!

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, the time trumpet version is better.

  • cephaloid

    Ben Frost – Theory of Machines playing in the background.

  • digitaltoast

    “Pixelsurgeon has remixed a bunch of BBC news-footage” – has he now? In exactly the same way that Adam Buxton did in January last year?

    Rip-off!

  • glace neuf

    it cracks me up how they can’t seem to ever make eye contact with each other, but they do get some good quality stares in :)

  • Barry Foy

    Tenderly, delicately lovely. Perfect, very precise, choice of music.

  • topcitybird

    I preferred Adam Buxton’s version that cybergibbons linked to up there ^.
    This one!
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4pY3QtiGyo

    Adam (and Joe) rock!

  • takeshi

    Speaking of funny news remixes…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck2CPqVKz_c

  • futwick

    I agree that Armando Iannucci’s version from Time Trumpet as YouTubed by Adam Buxton is better…

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4pY3QtiGyo

  • Scuba SM

    I would love to turn on the TV and see this one day. I also feel like it could be a great plot device in a movie or a book. I’ll have to think about the story that goes around it.

  • Tarmle

    When radio listeners tuned in to the BBC on Good Friday 1930 for the 6:30pm news bulletin, they were informed “There is no news today” and were instead treated to fifteen minutes of piano music.

    I did have a link to a bbc.co.uk article on this “event” but they’ve changed things around since then. The only information I can find now is this transcript of the QI show where it’s mentioned.

  • Anonymous

    on 1930 April 18 there was no news,and on BBC radio announce that there is no news today so just listen the piano

  • Patrick Dodds

    The third guy to appear ought to stop dying his hair.

  • Anonymous

    a blatant rip off of the genius that is adam buxton

  • buddy66

    Jim Bouton, ex-New York Yankee pitcher, had a later job at a NYC network(?) flagship station where he did the nightly sports news. One night he announced, ‘Absolutely nothing happened today in the world of sports,’ and signed off. Anyway, that’s what he claims….

  • AahMyEyes

    Cool, but not realistic for a different reason. Two words:
    Dancing babies.

  • stephen eighmey

    zen.

  • Chris Applegate

    I have to agree with Futwick – Armando Ianucci did this first, and better by cutting it in with different stations. If this video was in any way inspired or taken from the original then due credit should be given. Liked the music though.

  • gabu

    There’s something so… apologetic… regretful… ashamed… about the threaded-together facial expressions of these new anchors. It’s as if they’re sitting there, wishing they could tell us, “We’re so sorry it turned out this way. This isn’t what we meant to happen at all.”

  • Anselm

    If the news is not reported, does it still happen?

  • Mr Tibbs

    Is the music Stars of the Lid? Anyone know?

  • Smithereens

    Here is the news: Adam Buxton ripped off again. Will Ferrell denies he had anything to do with it this time…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1_5X8nhFIM

    http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/74

  • Anonymous

    Wasn’t the idea of “Day with no News” done on The Armando Ianucci Show ? I’m sure during one of his shows there was a parody of News24 having nothing to report.

  • ToasterFaerie

    This actually happened.

    “…it seems the flood of news – official or otherwise – had dried up. Listeners who tuned in to hear the bulletin on Good Friday itself were informed: “There is no news.” Piano music followed.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/spl/hi/history/noflash/html/1930s.stm

  • godfathersoul

    spooky… i agree, it seems almost like they are ashamed. and with the music to it too it feels like a funeral…

    I love the bottom part- nothing happened today, nobody died, The united states did not invade any countries (political commentary!) etc. The most interesting little blurb at the bottom tho:
    things are pretty much as they were yesterday.

    It’s no better, but it’s no worse and, if there is one thing the news is hellbent on making you feel, it’s that it is always worse than it was yesterday.

    I pray for the day when there really is, just one day, no new news.
    artistic criticism: I just wish the transitions between them were a little smoother

  • MonkeyT

    Didn’t Bloom County do something like this decades ago? I think it ended with “Tonight, on Nightline, Ted Koppell will interview his cat, Winkie.”

  • cybergibbons

    I like this version better.
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4pY3QtiGyo