Major Event Unreported Due to Lateness

It has emerged that the BBC was unable to cover a major event last year after reporters missed their train and couldn’t be there in time for the evening news.

According to crews, the event was one that affects us all and would have been a gargantuan scoop.

“But we simply weren’t there to stand outside the house where it occurred, 10 hours earlier, to speculate about it live,” sobbed chief reporter Penny Merryweather into her large, expensive microphone, “so what could we do?”

The event was an event of great – some say immense – magnitude with national and international reverberations. It is believed to have been “something on the scale of a nuclear war or a cure for Old Age.”

“But without me there to grimace and nod,” said Penny, “it might as well have never happened.”

News staff reject claims that they could have used the reports of amateurs.

“We use some amateur footage, it’s true, but ordinary people can’t do actual news because they don’t have the right mannerisms. They aren’t trained to grimace in the way I can,” Penny cautioned, “and their nods aren’t half as portentous. It would be futile for them to try.”

“What’s more,” said trainee reader Bill Sloop, “eyewitnesses to some events, particularly foreign events, are foreign. As such, we fear that they could bring a different cultural perspective to their comments, including views which some viewers may find unexpected. It’s important not to surprise Britons.”

“There is also the question of balance,” warned news director Vance Handlebank. “Occasionally an ordinary person will have a slightly different take on things. It would be terrible if this got out. And they probably can’t afford the special microphone anyway.”

This isn’t the only event to fall by the news wayside. In March 2008, something of earth-shattering importance is said to have gone on in Woking, but couldn’t be revealed as it wasn’t a scandal or anything involving princes. In April, something on the scale of an end to all suffering or a First Contact with aliens took place in Carmarthen, but couldn’t be aired because local journalists just couldn’t think of an angle.

“Sometimes business leaders give us tips. But on this? Nothing,” the bewildered newshounds said.

And last week, a discovery that changes everything was made in Durham, but there was no way to garble it to suggest that viewers’ lives are at risk from an everyday activity.

It is not known what any of these events is exactly, at least no one at TV Centre knows, and it’s not in the papers, so it seems unlikely, at this stage, that anyone will ever find out.

“Can’t think how they might do,” guffawed editors, “short of actually googling for it! But that’s all pervs and geeks that internet, so you don’t want to do that.”