(First published in the Manawatu Standard and Nelson Mail, November 15).
Something’s not right here.
I’m watching a 1 News item about
Prince Charles being implicated in an international tax dodge, and the reporter
is TVNZ’s own Chris Chang.
The story originated in
Britain but Chang would have recorded his voiceover in TVNZ’s Auckland
newsroom. It will have replaced a voice track supplied with the original item by
the BBC. But why?
Are we really expected to
believe that a journalist sitting in New Zealand, with no specialist knowledge
of Prince Charles or his dodgy investments, is in a better position to tell us
what’s going on than someone close to the action?
Of course he isn’t. But this
deception is routinely practised by our state-owned television network. Almost
nightly, TVNZ takes overseas news items and gets its own journalists to record
a voiceover.
It’s dishonest, because it
pretends TVNZ’s own staff have done the hard yards when in fact they’re
piggy-backing on the work of correspondents overseas.
You could argue that it’s harmless,
but it’s dishonest all the same – and entirely unnecessary. So why does TVNZ do
it?
I suspect that it’s all about
promoting TVNZ’s own journalists as “names” – celebrities, you might say – whom
we are encouraged to regard as our personal friends. It’s just one example of
the many ways in which TV news bulletins have been cheapened by gimmickry and
the cult of personality.
Even in the digital age, when
consumers of news have a veritable smorgasbord of options, the 6 o’clock news
remains crucial in locking viewers in for the evening. 1 News remains the most-watched free-to-air programme, and TVNZ
constantly tweaks it to ensure it retains our loyalty.
The debasement process was
set in train decades ago when someone decided it would be a good idea to have
two people, rather than one, reading the news.
The tandem male-female
newsreading team is now such an entrenched practice that we no longer think of
it as peculiar. But reading the news requires only one person, as radio and
most respected overseas TV networks demonstrate. Two is pure gimmickry.
Let me remind you how this
strange practice came about. In the late 1970s the newly launched TV2,
desperate to establish a point of difference against the bigger and
better-resourced TV One, pioneered a dual newsreading team consisting of John
Hawkesby and Tom Bradley.
Even Hawkesby and Bradley
seemed to recognise that it was all a bit silly, jokingly referring to
themselves privately as the Bobbsey Twins, after the characters in a popular
series of American children’s stories. But nearly 40 years down the
track, this contrivance has become a permanent fixture.
Now let’s move from the merely
irritating to the ingratiating. TVNZ newsreaders and reporters have clearly
been instructed to encourage us to think of them not as detached, competent
professionals doing a serious, important job, but as our chums.
It’s the Friendly News with
Simon and Wendy, with Dan the Smiling Weatherman providing the warm-up act. This
sense of easy familiarity is reinforced by the way the newsreaders address
reporters when they appear live. Jessica Mutch is “Jess”; sports host Andrew
Saville is “Sav”, and so on. They’re our pals.
We see it too when a reporter
such as Paul Hobbs, one of TVNZ’s most favoured journalists, appears on screen.
He often gives the impression that he’s less concerned with providing an
authoritative report than with establishing a smiley empathy with viewers.
This approach can be traced
back 20 years or so, to when an American consultant was brought in to retrain
TVNZ’s journalists and newsreaders. His message, which TVNZ management heartily
endorsed, was that viewers had to become more emotionally engaged with the
news. They had to feel it on a more personal level.
Brian Edwards memorably
called it the coochie-coo news. Some TVNZ journalists couldn’t bear it and quit
rather than undergo what they called “potty training”.
What else bugs me about 1 News? Well, there’s the nagging
suspicion that some reporters are hired for their looks rather than their
ability. It helps to be young and attractive. Appearance seems to be valued over experience.
Then there are the
ridiculously brief sound bites from interviewees – sometimes just three or four
words. Is TVNZ worried that our attention span can’t cope with a complete
sentence, or is it a way of making the news seem fast-paced and dynamic?
There’s also the ridiculous
emphasis on reporting “live” from the scene of a story, even when the event
being reported took place hours earlier and the “live” report adds nothing. It’s
made worse when the reporter is not up to the challenge of speaking live to the
camera, as is often the case.
And don’t get me started
about incorrect captions – indeed, often no captions at all, so that you’re
left to guess the identity of the person on screen. Standard practice is not to identify the speaker the first time he or she appears. You
have to wait for a second appearance before you learn who it is.
Again, why? Perhaps TVNZ
thinks we’ll be so curious to discover who it is that we won’t be tempted to stray to a rival
channel in the meantime. Who knows how the TVNZ corporate mind works?
My point is this: news is
serious stuff. It deserves to be treated with respect, not gussied up with
floss and tat better suited to a travelling circus.
In the 1920s, the BBC
famously required its radio newsreaders to wear a dinner jacket, even though no
one saw them. Over the top? Yes – but at least it showed that the BBC saw the
reading of the day’s news as an occasion of some gravitas.
FOOTNOTE: Soon after my column appeared on the Manawatu Standard website, TVNZ supplied the following statement from Phil O'Sullivan, head of newsgathering. I reproduce it in the interests of fairness and balance.
"Mr du Fresne is perfectly entitled to his opinion on our news and we welcome his
viewership but when he accuses 1 News of 'deception' and 'dishonesty', a
response is called for.
"We
frequently run international material from the BBC and the United States’ ABC
network. When our Europe or US correspondents are not available, we will
often pull together a story back here in New Zealand. Not all our affiliate
material is suitable to run in New Zealand. The story may still be developing,
it may be too long, too short or aimed too closely at an overseas domestic
audience. Our aim is simply to tell a story that New Zealand viewers can relate
to.
"Mr du Fresne is incorrect in stating as fact our reporter 'replaced a voice track
supplied with the original item supplied by the BBC'. The reporter conducted
his own research and reported the story using a range of affiliate material and
sourcing. In no way did we deceive our audience and we believe they’d be smart
enough to know if we did so.
"We
agree 'news is serious stuff'. In the past year alone our team has reported
from all over New Zealand and the world on stories as diverse as natural
disasters to a general election. All of these stories have myriad challenges,
not least keeping our staff safe while covering them.
"1 News is New Zealand’s most watched and most trusted TV news – we never take
that position for granted."
I'm happy to accept Phil O'Sullivan's assurance that Chris Chang compiled the Prince Charles item, although I question the need to do so when the BBC could have been relied on to cover the matter thoroughly. I believe this reinforces my point about TVNZ wanting to put its own reporters forward. I have noted many occasions in recent months when TVNZ's own journalists have presented overseas news items for no obvious reason.
Incidentally, I notice that on the two nights since my column was published, 1 News appears to have changed its policy of not identifying people when they first appear on screen. Of course this could be entirely coincidental. Nonetheless it's welcome.
6 comments:
Having TWO people read the news together is one of the stupidist and most-offputting things you'll ever see on TV. Neither of them owns the show (ie feels that it is HIS or HER show) so they have no strong desire to do it well. Very wasteful of their taxpayer-employers' money too.
Interested whether you consider Newshub is a better news presentation than One News? I watched Three News for many years, but switched to One News two years ago because I couldn't stand watching Patrick Gower any more. I still consider Mike McRoberts to be the best news presenter in the country though.
I've jumped backwards and forwards between One and Three over the years depending on which one has irritated me more at any given time. I gave up on Three in 2015 because I objected to the way it gratuitously wallowed in amateur video footage of a schoolgirl assault, and I haven't been back since.
Max, if there are two newsreaders together I'd rather not watch - no matter what station they're on.
Also I think that the one newsreader should read the sport and weather too.
I too gave up on Newshub (TV3) - in my case because of its distorted coverage of the election and the irritation which is Patrick Gower.
I could happily do w8thout TV news altogether - what maters can be found in the NYT and WP with an occasional check on the badly edited Herald and Stuff sites. But my wife now has a disability that means she struggles to read, so TV 1 at 6 has to be endured.
I have been slowly sinking into Left wing insanity and then i read Karl Du Fresne and somehow he knows what the hell is going on.
There is so much media whose correspondents and opinions are engineered every day.
It's hard to believe but if you have seen The Ipcress File, The public of New Zealand are being brainwashed on a daily basis. I have cancelled the Sunday Star Times. Fod Gods sake the size of the photos in colour of Alison Mau and others there are a least 6 inches long, that's a subaway measurement and the drivel, unbelieveable. They seem to want to talk about themselves all the time.It's Ego injection comments. Now Karl your little photo, black and white and Martin Van Beynen another great contributor are tiny, black and white.
Now the women Alison and others really should complain to show they are true feminists that they are being exploited -sex objects- 6 inches and in colour..........oh but im not sure that is forthcoming.........I wonder why?.
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