Saturday, 12 January 2008

Couch Potato Newsreaders...No More


It is a great relief to hear of ITV finally going back to its roots and away from the couch.

In order to compete with the BBC’s News at Ten, the ITV equivalent will be presented by Sir Trevor and sat behind a desk as it used to be. But where did the professionalism go in the first place?

It is the continuing debate whether the media is dumbing down or simply becoming more accessible to the public, but it appears as though ITV has gone back to the drawing board and back to formality.

Currently on Granada, newsreaders make commentaries, giggle with one another, and then read the news in between. But personally, when I want to know what’s going on, I want to hear it from someone who takes it seriously.

With the attitude of a Saturday night talk show, the presenters are becoming TV personalities rather than reliable sources for our dose of information. Of course formality will always have the stuck-up association alongside it, but if the news of a Third World War broke out and it was told by someone lay back on a sofa with a brew, I’d feel insulted.

The slope is a slippery one but fortunately, a great step has been taken by acknowledging that making the news accessible to those who, quite frankly, were not interested in the first place, it is a step in the right direction.

There is a place for casual TV and personally, I don’t think the news is that place. Perhaps on E! Maybe where the news is more light-hearted, but when the news is serious, I expect it to be taken that way.

Why should a new channel adapt in order to attract a temporary audience? If the subject matter was of no interest in the first place, it certainly does not make it unimportant. News can only be sugar-coated so much but if the topics are not of interest, sticking a presenter on a couch doesn’t change that fact. To give in to the softer news that, let’s face it, the majority of the country prefers, is admitting defeat and will only take the media industry backwards.

In this case though, moving backwards is absolutely the way forward. That British voice, sat with notes, and a comb-over is the typical image of a newsreader first instated in the 50’s and as a traditional girl, I think it needs to be brought back.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=507445&in_page_id=1770

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