Hats off to Simon Waldman at BBC News 24 for live-blogging his gallery stint this morning. Interesting exercise, if slightly twitterish. At one point he points to traffic volumes on the BBC’s website providing a useful gauge of a story’s popularity.

IMO they ought to stream talkback (the “conversation” in the gallery). For starters it’s good for transparency and would put paid to much conspiracy theorising. Second, it’s a good discipline (No Richard Mottram-isms). Third, it’s cheap.

And I don’t think Britain’s other 24-hour news channel would gain too much of an advantage by hearing it.

From the live blog you can also see some of the weird workings of the classic big organization, for example the BBC Queen apology apparently has to hit PA before News 24 runs it. On the one hand, the BBC press people are fair to all – on the other, it is a bit bonkers!