A rolling news gathers no mass

It is a decade since I was part of the vast launch team for BBC News 24 and thankfully it has got a lot better since then. We spent six months idealistically planning for an all-singing all-dancing news channel that would embrace every inch of the globe and every subject under the sun. The result was editorial chaos. We soon learnt that what news channels do best is deliver simple, straight, live news as it happens – again and again, around the clock. Now News 24 is as good as Sky or CNN. But questions remain about the viability of rolling news in face of tiny audiences and competition from online news