'twas Christmas Day in the newsroom...

(From Leicester Mercury)

If you flicked on the news on Christmas Eve you'd have probably seen a reporter standing outside a hospital in Cambridgeshire filling air time by talking about what the surgeons inside were doing to Prince Philip's heart.

If you'd flicked on 24 hours later, you'd have got more of the same. And again on Boxing Day.

This Christmas, the Duke of Edinburgh's minor heart procedure dominated radio and TV broadcasts and print headlines for days, mainly because it was a relatively quiet time for news. Most media organisations - the Mercury included - operate with reduced staff over the festive period (aka silly season) but papers and bulletins still need to be filled even when the news tends to dry up.

This means the stories that offer the path of least resistance can prevail.

It really is the hardest time of the year to find news because many of the …