From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 10 October

Since when did the musings of the next-door neighbour, or the person who lives across the street from the scene of the accident, come to matter in the reporting of a news story?

THE recent earthquake which struck parts of the east coast of Australia is a prime example. Their charm and excitement at appearing on television notwithstanding, what the musings of the young man who lived nearby and thought it was like being in movie, or the mother who was cooking breakfast with her child at her feet, adds to the gravity of the story remains a total mystery. Certainly, it does not advance the narrative. In short, it was embarrassing but not rare, unfortunately.

The 24-hour news cycle has become so-much part of our lives and turned news into infotainment – a form of voracious reality television which has created a need to fill hours of airtime; consequently, the style and format of news, and in presentation, has changed, irrevocably. In desperation, on the road reporters will talk with anyone – and if they cannot shanghai someone to join them in the banal banter, they talk to themselves. What are called ‘live-crosses’ have become the curse of every news service – a reporter standing outside a building and prattling-on, endlessly, about nothing, and occasionally answering a couple of inane questions from the news desk. It is excruciating!

News it seems has become a dumbed-down version of ‘show and tell’ for those with a reading age of 10! There was a time when television news had no pictures. The newsreader sat at a desk and read the from a script. Autocue had not yet been invented. Today, if you do not have the pictures – and the more graphic the better – the piece cannot go to air. It is the old story of the fire brigade and a cat stuck up a tree, or headfirst in a drainpipe.  We know what a hapless feline looks like in those circumstances and we do not have to see pictures to understand what we are being told, or to have sympathy for the subject. There would seem to be an assumption the viewing audience is so dim witted, or too damn stupid to understand the words without pictures!

Where once it was a sackable offence, now, more than ever, news services have taken to editorialising. Comments and judgements which have no place in unbiased reporting have become common place. Reporters are chasing the opportunity to become a celebrity. In some instances they place themselves at the centre of the action, seemingly believing they are part of the story, particularly if it has the potential to garner national attention.

Clothing which once would have been deemed inappropriate for an on-the-road reporter is now de rigueur. Gone are the days of shirts and blazers. Nowadays, some of the outfits worn by newsreaders/presenters would be more suitable for a nightclub environment. Few things are more distracting, and guaranteed to break the viewers’ collective concentration, than dangling earrings bouncing around in perfect time to the bobbing head of the newsreader.

Gallingly, the standard of grammar is not what it ought be. Verbs for singular and plural subjects are constantly applied incorrectly. The AFL is a singular entity, therefore the verb is singular. The AFL has, and not the AFL have!

The late Ian Wynne was an ABC radio studio supervisor in Perth. He was gifted of a ferocious intelligence and a total inability to suffer or forgive even the slightest on-air stumble. In those days at the ABC cadet announcers were trained, like monkeys on a stick, in a classroom. They were taught how to be an announcer. When one self-absorbed cadet ask if he should wear headphones while reading the news, Mr Wynne replied, witheringly, “You can if you want, but in your case all you will hear is the news being read badly!”

Roland can be heard with Brett Macdonald each Monday, 10.45am on Radio 3BA and contacted via [email protected].