Reporting bad news on TV - it's weird and uncomfortable..

pastryboy

Was watching ITV news yesterday (well it had been left on) and I find it troubling. Is this the news that people want?

A reporter had gone to the home town of one of the female police officers who was shot (it seems it must be stressed they were female officers and not just officers at every opportunity). She was standing there reporting live - this was several miles away from where the incident happened in a random street where everyone was going about their business.

This reporter had spent the day desperately trying to get quotes from people. She had spoken to her old school, random people in the street and all of the local pub/bar landlord's (only one of whom claimed to have known the officer). She had pointed out that 'many' people weren't willing to talk to her. Quite possibly because they had no idea who she was and had never met her.

I found this slightly uncomfortable viewing. We know it was a tragic event and we know that people will always say positive things about people who've died. But ITV decided to go round and desperately scrape together any quote it could just to emphasise how tragic, how shocking and just what a lovely girl the officer was. The few (predictable) comments they had managed to scrape together about the shock in the community and how lovely she was (based on the fact she had come into his pub a few times) were then relayed with a pained expression and poignancy.

It felt to me like they wanted it to be as tragic as possible and were willing to get as many quotes as possible from anyone who might have ever bumped into her, just so the full tragedy could be laid out to us, blow by blow. It felt almost manipulative like I was too thick to understand just how tragic it was so they had to spell it out to me. The facts alone weren't enough, ITV had to add some emotion too.

It felt like the same voyeurism and manipulation (sad back story music) you get on talent shows.

Is all news like this now or is just crappy ITV?

SimonAH

It's crappy TV full stop - there is no news today.

The lead stories over breakfast were re-hash and strained footage relating to the murder and something about some female soldier who managed to go full terms on the Afgan front line......

davmaggs

They're so desperate to fill air time, especially in the evening when nothing actually happens on the case that they'll just make stuff up. Plus it always seems to me that once they committed a crew to travel and stay in an area then the studio will just keep going back to them again and again even though they have nothing to report.

I remember Sky news during the McCann case had a banner scroll across the bottom of the screen saying "breaking news: no new developments in the case".

bails87

SimonAH wrote:

It's crappy TV full stop - there is no news today.

The lead stories over breakfast were re-hash and strained footage relating to the murder and something about some female soldier who managed to go full terms on the Afgan front line......

And an advert for a Robbie Williams song :?

I'm always frustrated by BBC Breakfast, they've got a few hours to fill, they could afford to spend a bit of time on something. Instead they start talking about the right to die or something equally complex and then give a 'for' and 'against' spokesperson 90 seconds each, then say "Thanks for that. Now to Austria where Mittens the kitten has been playing with the same ball of wool for 2 months, this might be a record,isn't that right John?" "Yes Suzanne, I'm here just outside Vienna with Mittens and her owner..."

MrChuck

ITV news is the Daily Mail of TV news IMO. The BBC seem to be on a steady course down to meet them though.

davmaggs

Rolling news also has the annoying habit of repeating the facts, but backwards.

The example being that the studio will tell you what happened, where, and what people are saying nearby and then cut to the reporter outside. That reporter will then proceed to say the same 'facts' as given by the studio, but in reverse order. In the end you learn not one iota more from the reporter who is there.

Ride hard

I look after press and marketing for my organisation and was recently contacted by a news team (that shall remain nameless) that wanted to run a piece on us for a slot on TV news. We didn’t feel it was right for us, but to say the tactics this news team used to try to convince us otherwise, and then what they eventually did, smacked of desperation is putting it mildly. So I’m not surprised that with this going on behind the scenes, the news reports themselves have a similar desperate and often irrelevant nature.

I agree that this is a tragic case, but we as reasoned, intelligent humans know this. Hounding people on the street for a comment should be confined to a salacious gossip column. I also don’t like it when the media often tries to shoehorn in, and start another debate off the back of a tragedy like this. As much as I love Channel 4 News’ output I thought it was totally inappropriate for them to raise the issue of arming officers hours after the shootings and then running a VT cataloguing all the officers that have been killed on duty over the years. Even the Commission of the Manchester Constabulary thought it wasn’t the right time when questioned by Matt Frei.

Yes this debate is important, but surely not within hours of something like this happening. Surely they (the media) must realise how insensitive this comes across as.

bails87

Thing is, it's news, it's current. If they don't discuss it now, they never will, they discuss stuff that's topical. If they didn't then it wouldn't be news.

I admit that "X has reponed the debate on Y" normally means "X has happened and we need to fill some time so we're going to talk about Y, no matter how stupid Y might be".

rick_chasey

Saw an outstanding interview on sky news whilst waiting for an interview.

Some local bloke who goes about trying to pull kids out of the gangs there is pulled infront of the camera.

"So what are your views on these horrific events?"

"well, all I've really seen is what's been reported on the TV"

10/10 sky. The feedback loop is complete.

daniel_b

All news seems to have gone down the tabloid gutter, it's very frustrating.

I fail to see how images of someone in the depths of grief for example is news - it is not, the actual event that caused that is news, but the persons grief we should not want to see, and it is invasive - it's strikes me as gratuitously offensive dramatic television (When it should be news) with no real basis behind it, aside from some morbid fascination with it.

The BBC seem as bad as anyone these days.

And what is the fascination with putting someone onsite, so they can say "And as you can see by the scene behind me...." while a forensics man walks out or whatever, it's moronic. :evil:

And I totally agree, interviewing random people to ask what they think about events - how is that news - it isn't, and never will be.

What has happened to the news, I mean really?

godders1

There’s obviously a conflict between the desire for “exclusives” (or even just to be topical) and accuracy.

Then add in the brief to “entertain” and be “engaging” and it’s pretty easy to understand why news reporting is in such a sorry state in this country.

On The Hour/The Day Today were brilliant at the time but Chris Morris is looking even more like a genius with every passing day.

Ian.B

Quoting random tweets from members of the public with nothing useful to add and no connection to what's going on really irritates me too

rjsterry

"...Do send us your thoughts on that..."

No. Please don't. I'm not interested in what Dave from Manchester thinks about it unless he happens to be an acknowledged authority on the subject, in which case you should be interviewing him instead.

SteppenHerring

rjsterry wrote:

"...Do send us your thoughts on that..."

No. Please don't. I'm not interested in what Dave from Manchester thinks about it unless he happens to be an acknowledged authority on the subject, in which case you should be interviewing him instead.

+294

There's plenty of real news although that might require some work on behalf of the reporter and some concentration of behalf of the viewer. As to the original post, well had I been asked, I would've made something up: "Yeah, I knew her. I wondered what she would do after the SAS ..."

cje

Does it matter that the victim was a 'bubbly girl who loved her job and was looking forward to her wedding?' If she was a dull single girl who hated her job it'd make absolutely no difference to the severity of the crime.

Cleat Eastwood

The mic and camera are no more than the old school pen and pencil - on journo MA's you're still taught by ex pro's to ask as much as you can to get the who/why/when/where questions covered - I guess the visual image is stiil more emotive than the written word.

It can be seen as sloppy though. A few years ago there was a guy with my surname who sadly died - I received a phone call from a local radio station asking if I knew him or was in anyway related. If I had been, did they really think my first response would to chat with a random caller.

bails87

And now David Cameron is on a sympathy mission/photo op to GMP HQ.

Why? I hate all the forced apologies and 'showing your face after something bad's happened' in politics. The PM popping up to say hello is a distraction, nothing more, when I'm sure GMP have got more important things to be doing.

rhext

It's like Kate's topless photos though, isn't it? Media organisations watch their consumption metrics like hawks: magazines/newspapers get paid per copy, websites use hit counts to generate advertising revenue, commercial TV use viewing figures to do the same, and the BBC uses viewing figures to defend the license fee. So who's at fault? The media organisations who produce the stuff, or the millions and millions of people who devote their time and cash to consuming it?

We sit here and complain about the voyeuristic tat that gets splurged out so frequently, but the fact is that there must be an awful lot of people out there who love it. If it didn't generate viewing figures they'd be producing something else. My outlook on life tends towards the 'couldn't give a stuff about what other people are doing with theirs, I'm too busy leading mine'. But there are a lot of people who seem desperately interested in how other people are living their lives and while I can't understand why, I can certainly understand why there seem to be a lot of programmes targetted at them.

bails87

It's because of rolling news, to some extent. If you've got a 24hr news channel then that's 24 hours of space to fill with news, on a limited budget, with limited resources. It's cheap and easy to fill time by talking whilst not actually telling us anything.

SteppenHerring

bails87 wrote:

It's because of rolling news, to some extent. If you've got a 24hr news channel then that's 24 hours of space to fill with news, on a limited budget, with limited resources. It's cheap and easy to fill time by talking whilst not actually telling us anything.

Can't remember where but I remember someone saying that if the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened when there was 24 hour news, there would have been a nuclear war. JFK would've been under so much pressure to "do something" that, likely, it would've all kicked off.

team47b

I don't have a TV so I don't watch the news, I get all my news from reading this forum :shock:

When people ask me about something that has just happened I just give them YOUR opinions

Keep up the good work.

SteppenHerring

team47b wrote:

I don't have a TV so I don't watch the news, I get all my news from reading this forum :shock:

When people ask me about something that has just happened I just give them YOUR opinions

Keep up the good work.

I feel it's quite refreshing that the Queen should feel she can come out as a lesbian at her age. Admittedly it should've been a clue - the many mentions of her "friend and constant companion" the spinster Margaret Davies. And I think the flat-top rather becomes her.

team47b

SteppenHerring wrote:

team47b wrote:

I don't have a TV so I don't watch the news, I get all my news from reading this forum :shock:

When people ask me about something that has just happened I just give them YOUR opinions

Keep up the good work.

I feel it's quite refreshing that the Queen should feel she can come out as a lesbian at her age. Admittedly it should've been a clue - the many mentions of her "friend and constant companion" the spinster Margaret Davies. And I think the flat-top rather becomes her.

Cool, can't wait to see the new stamps

daviesee

I am just back from New York (no that's not just showing off, just background ).
While having lunch in the financial District there were 3 guys at the table next to us discussing their business, loudly - as they do - so I couldn't help but overhear. Their business was advertising and marketing. One guy was lamenting how false the reporting of stories was getting in the magazines and one of the other guys agreed but explained...
The magazine editor has a choice. "Sex up" the story and sell or tell the truth and fold. I dare say TV has the same choices to make, and here too.

It is a sad indictment on our society.

bails87

Flat Earth News is worth a read for anyone interested in that sort of thing.


Everyone who reads/listens/watches the news should be interested IMO....

CanalRider

this sums it up Onion News Network