Peter Sissons RIP

[ardcarp]

Radio 4's PM programme tried to pay tribute to him via an interview with Michael Buerk. The latter gave a more grudging, stingy appraisal of Sisson's life and work than it would be hard to imagine.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008wpk

About 29 mins in. One clever chap a bit jealous of another? A bit of a mis-calculation by the beeb perhaps?

Happily Channel 4 News did rather better.

[Conchis]

Radio 4's PM programme tried to pay tribute to him via an interview with Michael Buerk. The latter gave a more grudging, stingy appraisal of Sisson's life and work than it would be hard to imagine.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008wpk

About 29 mins in. One clever chap a bit jealous of another? A bit of a mis-calculation by the beeb perhaps?

Happily Channel 4 News did rather better.

Hmm.... I hear what you mean. But, as Buerk says, he didn’t know him well and,tbh, his tenure as QT ringmaster ( a job now rendered impossible by Brexit) was pretty disastrous.

Listening to that reminded me why I consciously avoid programmes presented by Evan Davis, a real flaccid presenter.

[muzzer]

Yes, Buerk did sound begrudging but I prefer to think he’d been asked at short notice and in fact had taken it as read that PS was held in high esteem and it was his place simply to add some personal recollections or observations.

[ardcarp]

I guess I have it embedded in my mind that (short of villainous dictators) a tribute to the recently departed should be more along the lines of an encomium. I thought Buerk's manner as much as anything else was the problem.

it was his place simply to add some personal recollections or observations.

I think he started off by saying something along the lines of 'our paths never crossed'. A strange choice then.

[LMcD]

Perhaps 'PM' were desperate to be the first to broadcast the reaction of a fellow ex-newsreader, thereby spiking the guns of the 6 O'Clock News. Regrettably, British media are now adopting the mantra of their US colleagues, namely that it's more important to be first than it is to be right. The 10 O'Clock News on BBC1 was more generous in its assessment of Peter Sissons's work.

[ardcarp]

The 10 O'Clock News on BBC1 was more generous in its assessment of Peter Sissons's work.

Indeed it was.

[cloughie]

PS was of the old style professional presenter. There is a great photo of him on a school trip at junior school with John Lennon and Jimmy Tarbuck from about 70 years ago.

[Boilk]

Remember one of PS's witticisms...

I'm on two diets at the moment; you don't get enough to eat on one.