ITV News bested the BBC tonight. Crime is their thing and they set about it with grim determination. Yes, the word grim … you will have heard it repeated a few times this evening. ITN are there when the bodies are found, they have the Paula Clennell interview. On the scene Mark Austin holds things together with a world-weary graveur that just works.

The only hollow note? Isla Traquair‘s attempt to describe her feelings. The much-mocked argot of TV news just doesn’t allow emotion to leak out. When it does it feels awkward and trite – however genuine the feelings being articulated.

But TV news talk does allow some good things that conversation does not. Later in the programme, here’s Jonny Irvine‘s lovely final verdict as he signs off from the funeral of Augusto Pinochet, with a little tip of the hat to Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar:

How will he be remembered?
Well, it’s said it’s the evil that men do that lives after them.

Armando Iannucci, prick up your ears.