Scottish Media: Channel 4

The first thing you may notice as a tourist is the difference in television news. They do not have local affiliates and the main news comes from England. In Scotland there are two news organizations on television, STV (Scottish television) and BBC Scotland. They compete like our local affiliates but they must cover an entire nation.

The other media from England provides various other news organizations. There is the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4. Channel 4 is renown for its in-depth news. I met Jon Snow at the university and he was quite a nice fellow. I had no idea who he was but was told later he was the news anchor for Channel 4. After I figured that out and listened to his speech, I was a bit ashamed. He is the equivalent to our Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. He covered the Iran Crisis in the 1979 for ABC because American Journalists were not allowed there for obvious reasons.

If you watched any of the Bhutto assassination coverage from the States you may have seen the graphic, Channel 4 exclusive. Well Channel 4 kicked butt with the story and if you see their version of the story you will be better informed. Click here to see the story.


Overall, the news in the United Kingdom is much better. They spend more time on a story and it is rare to see ridiculous teases about sexy co-eds or some stupid thing that we get in the United States. The reason: commercialization. The US needs ratings to make money. The United Kingdom puts a limit on the number of commericials and give government funding. The media is public funded. It makes a big difference.

The full link to the story:
Channel 4 - News - Pakistan's Bhutto killed in attack