8.6 /10 1 Votes
Genre Television review Country of origin United Kingdom No. of episodes 12 Final episode date 23 February 2010 Number of episodes 12 | 8.7/10 IMDb Created by Charlie Brooker No. of series 2 First episode date 25 March 2009 Presented by Charlie Brooker Program creator Charlie Brooker | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Opening theme "You Are Here" (Fortdax Remix) by Nathan Fake Awards British Comedy Award for the Best Comedy Entertainment Programme Similar Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, Charlie Brooker's Weekly W, Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe, How TV Ruined Your Life, You Have Been Watching | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Newswipe with charlie brooker season 1 episode 1
Newswipe with Charlie Brooker is a British news review programme broadcast on BBC Four during 2009 and 2010 which was written and presented by Charlie Brooker. It is similar to Brooker's Screenwipe series which is also shown on BBC Four. A first series of six episodes ran between 25 March 2009 and 29 April 2009. A second series began on 19 January 2010 and concluded on 23 February 2010.
Contents
Format
The aim of Newswipe was to expose the inner workings of news media, just as Screenwipe does to television in general.
The series was a comic, thoughtful and acerbic analysis of recent news coverage. Newswipe also looked at the way the news is presented to the public. Experts were on hand to pick apart certain stories and analysed the news media's obsessions.
Charlie Brooker commented: "This is new territory for me: I'm no current affairs expert. Just like, I suspect, many people, when I tune into the news I often feel like I've wandered into episode 389 of the world's most complex soap opera. So it's also about me trying to make sense of a bewildering and often bloody stupid world."
Like Screenwipe, much of the programme was filmed in Brooker's living room, with shots of him sitting in front of his TV (and laptop) with remote in hand talking to camera, occasionally bellowing insults or sarcastic comments at whatever happens to be shown at the time, interspersed with shots of shows.
Reaction
The Times, reviewing the first episode, called it "glorious, perceptive and rude" and exposing "the inanity of 24-hour news".
A clip entitled "How To Report The News" from episode two of the second series amassed over two and a half million views on YouTube after it was syndicated by The Huffington Post soon after its first airing. It is currently the ninth 'top rated' video of all-time on the site.
Newswipe won the Entertainment category award at the Royal Television Awards in 2010, beating both Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor, and was also nominated for a BAFTA in the same year for Best Entertainment Programme, however on this occasion losing to Britain's Got Talent.