Competitive

This week's Media Show on Radio 4 was not entirely enlightening. Presenter Steve Hewlett, guilty this time of unfriendly fire, set the tone by saying the BBC had been, essentially, well beaten in its coverage of Tripoli's stuttering fall by Sky News. BBC News was defended by Jon Williams; Sarah Whitehead spoke for Sky.

For background, Steve Hewlett, now a media Professor, was in "tv current affairs" when he was at the BBC, mentally very separate from BBC News. Until October 2010, Sarah Whitehead worked for Jon Williams as part of BBC foreign newsgathering management. 

Jon's defence was generally sound and solid, but faltered when he revealed that the timing of events meant some correspondent effort was tied up editing pieces for network bulletins, rather than live reporting, in order to give the famous "context"; I'm sure the editors of both the 6 and 10 would have given their eye teeth for live pieces. And the argument that the BBC had "won" because it had achieved a bigger audience was not really germane to the discussion. 

However, we should all be put in our place by this well-argued blog post by the BBC's Stuart Hughes, "War reporting is not a spectator sport".

• And the competition goes on - this from BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones at around 3pm....