WOULD you, esteemed reader, believe that there’d be a day when there’d be NO NEWS ‘worth releasing – especially by the highly-reputable British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)? Reportedly, on April 18, 1930, the BBC blithely announced in their evening programme that “there’s no news!”
Commenting on that in his piece titled ‘April 18, 1930: A day with no news,’ a regular contributor to ‘The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets’ published by Forbes on March 2, 2012, the London-based ‘Opinion Shaper’ Dave Their wrote: “The idea that there’d never be news is ridiculous.
How couldn’t there be any news at all? “My (Journalism) world requires news all the time, every hour of every day… Sometimes, however, nothing interesting’s happening – even if we can’t quite bring ourselves to admit it.
On this day (April 18) eighty-two years ago (1930), the BBC just came right out and said it on the evening news. ‘There’s no news today,’ they announced – and then piano music followed! “April 18, 1930 should give today’s blog-fixated world a pause.
Today, we troll the entire planet for news – and not just one single quixotic island-nation (Britain) – so that there’s more to talk about. Also, there’s a lot more of us doing things. But it’s not always relevant to our own lives. Some days, piano music’s just a better option,” Dave Their concludes.
But, what HAPPENED on April 18, 1930? Or, perhaps more accurately: what DIDN’T HAPPEN on that day which was worth informing the world in general – and BBC listeners in particular?
In another piece titled ‘The day when there was no news’ published on November 30, 2010, the unnamed writer(recalling US President Benjamin Franklin’s 1789 pontification that, ‘in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes’)said it’d be “preposterous if, for one day, nothing – other than death and taxes, that is — happened; what if there’s a day when there’s NO news…?But, on April 18, 1930, BBC-Radio reported exactly that: NO NEWS! “The evening prior, the British Government wanted to deny some ‘news’ that’d made the rounds.
But, because the newspapers weren’t printing due to the Easter holiday, government officials went to the radio. Within twenty-four hours, those untold issues were no longer news — and apparently, BBC Radio determined that nothing else was, either! For their 6:30pm broadcast, they simply announced
‘There’s no news’ — and filled the remainder of the time with piano music!” But, historians tell us that “a few newsworthy things did happen on that date, one of which is particularly notable!” (Un)reportedly, a small group of young revolutionaries in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh – then still under British control – raided the police armory.
A few days later, the revolutionaries and British soldiers battled it out, resulting in the deaths of 80 British soldiers and only a dozen rebels… Now, that was indeed news: young rebels massacring 80 top-class troops of their alien ruler, Britain – on whose Empire the Sun never set! – at a ‘cost’ of only 12 rebel casualties was NEWS worth broadcasting.
Apparently, the British government wanted to deny that – and as it turned out … well, you now know whether or not that was news worth broadcasting! So, what with one thing leading to another… Oh, oh, oh!
Here’s another piece on the same subject-matter, purportedly ‘written by Curiosity Staff!’ Titled ‘History: in 1930, BBC-Radio had a day with no news’ – and published on April 13, 2017 – it reads in part as follows: “Some days, the news is so terrible that you just want to ‘will it away’ entirely!
On April 18, 1930, BBC-Radio did just that. Instead of their usual evening broadcast, they chose to play piano music. Doesn’t that sound pleasant?!!! “The day the stories stopped: the night before Good Friday (in 1930), the UK Home Office was desperate to deny a newspaper account of an interview with the Home Secretary. Since newspapers wouldn’t be published over the Easter holiday, they had only one option for their announcement of denial: BBC-Radio’s evening news.
“The evening of Good Friday came – and, apparently, the untold issues were no longer news…! So, what did the editorial staff do? According to the BBC, “listeners who tuned in to hear the news bulletin on Good Friday itself were informed: ‘There’s no news.’ Then, they heard piano music…
BUT, “there’s ALWAYS news,” scream ‘the Curiosity Staff,’ adding: “if you’re wondering whether or not there actually wasn’t any news that day (April 18, 1930)… well, of course there was… Would you like a day with no news? Well; I don’t know for sure… Do YOU, my esteemed reader? After all, ‘no news is good news,’ right…? Cheers!
