punimaginative journalism

Surely I can't be the only person who objects to this disease that seems to have spread to all parts of the media? Even the BBC, who should know better.

I'm talking about the kind of journalism where they attempt to crowbar in as many puns as they can related to the theme of the story.

So if the story has a link to boats, they would be sure to work in phrases like "all at sea", "drop anchor", "splice the mainbrace" and "plain sailing".

Why do I object? Because it's amateurish. It's lazy and formulaic. It adds no value. It's not funny and it's not clever - any fool can do it. It also tends to skew the reporting, because the writer invariably ends up taking the story where the puns are, rather than where it really should be going.

To make matters worse it's insulting to the audience. It suggests you can only be interested in a topic if it is drowned in a cheese sauce of clichés and puns.

I've got nothing against the occasional pun, metaphor or cliché. I also know the tabloids have been doing this kind of thing from the beginning of time, but for the BBC to have now adopted it practically as their housestyle is unforgivable.

I can only assume someone must be running a training course at the Beeb where this ludicrous style of writing is taught as good practice. Truth is it's terrible practice. If only someone would explain that to the writers of shows like BBC Breakfast and all those auction, car boot sale and house moving programmes.