Newsreading's a piece of cake, eh?

So Terry Wogan considers newscasters as “self-important” and the job a “piece of cake“.

He’s quite right.. or nearly right. It’s a piece of cake so long as you can absent yourself from any involvement in generating the material that you are reading. The moment you combine newsreading with actual journalism, going after stories, trying to find out stuff, and the rest, it becomes much harder.

Newsreading is easy so long as you don’t think too hard about what you are reading. The moment you have some involvement in the content, you are thinking about it all the time you are reading.

You suddenly find yourself asking: “Is this right?”

Your own knowledge starts getting in the way and hey presto! You have tripped on a word, and this “piece of cake” turns into a banana skin.

As for “self-important”, probably true except has anyone out there got time to remember how self important they are?

I keep forgetting to remember that I’m not just a piece of cake, I’m the most self-important slice on earth!