The problem with television news

Computers in films tend to be strange things with lots of flashing lights, unlike the computers people were actually using. When a realistic one was shown it was often being used in an unrealistic way (see the "It's a Unix system" line in Jurassic Park).

The same applies on television, whether it's drama or even news. Because computers just don't look very interesting most of the time, when computers are pictured they often have to be shown in unrealistic ways.

Whether that's a PC that appears to be magically running Mac OS or a computer that just isn't plugged in, it's still not uncommon to find this kind of mistake on screen. For news reports, it's part of the desire of TV news people to get some sort of 'action' shot into their interviews.

A recent Sky Sports News report showed a particularly egregious example. The interview with Assistant Chief Constable Campbell Corrigan of Strathclyde police was reasonable enough, desling with violence at the previous night's 'old firm' football match in Glasgow.

But it becomes clear about 30 seconds in that, after the main interview was recorded, someone in the filming crew asked the policeman to sit and tap away at his PC for the camera, to provide a cutaway sequence, presumably to make the editing easier.

Unfortunately, ACC Corrigan is then shown typing away at a Windows PC that's quite clearly not doing anything - it's showing the Windows login screen. To make matters worse, the two-fingered typing on display doesn't do the policeman any favours.