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Broadcast News Presenters and Reporters Expressing Personal Feelings

M

Mario500

Guest
Are you tired of broadcast news presenters and reporters expressing their own personal feelings about the stories they tell? I have heard TV news presenters even react to videos accompanying the stories they present. Why are their employers allowing them to this? I hope this behavior is not being taught to students of broadcast news reporting.
 
Mario-500 said:
Are you tired of broadcast news presenters and reporters expressing their own personal feelings about the stories they tell present? I have heard TV news presenters even react to videos accompanying the stories they present. Why are their employers allowing them to this? I hope this behavior is not being taught to students of broadcast news reporting.
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That cat was let out of the bag on February 27, 1968, when Walter Cronkite made his personal comments on the Vietnam War on The CBS Evening News. It went downhill (especially at CBS, thanks to Mr. Rather) from there.
 
I would think both the audience and the station-owning companies are willing to allow long-term seasoned reporters who have "paid their dues" to share some of their observations. When someone sitting in the booth during the national convention of a political party in the process of nominating their candidate and kicking off the campaign says: "I have been on the broadcast team now for 11th time and I have NEVER seen that tactic used before by either party...." I take no offense. In fact, I surf the channels to see which group has a broadcast team that has maturity and a track record of "integrity in their observations".

When I see very youthful "news readers" who demonstrate they have no long time experience to "document" their qualifications to become a commentator, and they insist on trying force-feed opinion through my ear canal, I get grumpy.

It quickly becomes apparent that different broadcast operations have a different sensitivity and threshold for who should and who shouldn't express personal feelings.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
I would think both the audience and the station-owning companies are willing to allow long-term seasoned reporters who have "paid their dues" to share some of their observations. When someone sitting in the booth during the national convention of a political party in the process of nominating their candidate and kicking off the campaign says: "I have been on the broadcast team now for 11th time and I have NEVER seen that tactic used before by either party...." I take no offense. In fact, I surf the channels to see which group has a broadcast team that has maturity and a track record of "integrity in their observations".
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That's fine, as long as it's not being done during a newscast, where that person's one job is to read the news. Period.

Sunday morning talking-head shows, convention and election coverage, the time after Presidential speeches (and opposition-party rebuttals), and the like are places for analysis and opinion. All the networks have people who are paid to give their opinion. Even those who normally just read the news are allowed to do so on occasion, in the right setting and context.

But opinions have no place whatsoever in the newscast itself - network or local. If someone is reading the news, I don't care what they think about it. Of course they have an opinion, but they must keep it to themselves when doing a job that requires objectivity, such as reporting or anchoring.
 
KeithE4 said:
That cat was let out of the bag on February 27, 1968, when Walter Cronkite made his personal comments on the Vietnam War on The CBS Evening News.
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It began a lot earlier. Reporters did a lot of cheerleading during World War 2. And all the networks had their big name commentators. But with regards to the Vietnam story, Cronkite was very clear that what he was saying was a commentary. And he did it in the way reporters had been doing it for years. What made it different was that it was Cronkite. Over at NBC, Huntley & Brinkley ended each newscast with a comment. Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith did the same at ABC.

The conflict today's journalists face is a complicated one: The public needs an emotional connection in order to get interested in a story. Just straight reading of the news isn't as interesting or as popular. They are being coached to show feelings and express empathy in stories because that's what the audience wants. They can get the bare facts from any place. If you as a reporter make that connection, it can lead to bigger things in your career. On the other hand, if you make an offhand comment that comes off rude or dumb, it can kill you. Not always a chance a reporter wants to take, but that's the risk.
 
Mario-500 said:
Are you tired of broadcast news presenters and reporters expressing their own personal feelings about the stories they tell? I have heard TV news presenters even react to videos accompanying the stories they present. Why are their employers allowing them to this? I hope this behavior is not being taught to students of broadcast news reporting.
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I see this more on Cable news than I do on PBS NewsHour.
 
I hear broadcasters expressing their feelings about the news during the local TV newscasts in Mobile, Alabama every day.
 
Not only do they express their feelings, but they do so in such a maudlin, scripted way that indicates they really don't have any feelings whatsoever.

They're supposed to be journalists. Keep feelings out of it. Facts only, please, and I'll decide how I feel (and what I think) about a story. That's why I don't watch network news anymore and rarely watch local news. I go to a lot of different sites that run the gamut, from middle-of-the-road factual to bat-spit crazy (on both sides) just to see what people are saying and how they're saying it. TV, notsomuch.
 
In my view it's not professional, but it has been going on in TV news forever.

Here in Pittsburgh, Patty and Daddy Burns at KDKA-TV were two of the very worst.
But that never kept KD from being a top-rated news station. In some weird folksy
kind of way people seemed to like it.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
In my view it's not professional, but it has been going on in TV news forever.

Here in Pittsburgh, Patty and Daddy Burns at KDKA-TV were two of the very worst.
But that never kept KD from being a top-rated news station. In some weird folksy
kind of way people seemed to like it.
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And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they do it.
 
One of the local reporters nearly cried on air after running a story he did on a local coach's daughter killed during the April 27 tornadoes.
 
TheBigA said:
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they do it.
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And the folks CBS might disagree with you. Year-over-year, Scott Pelley is up 15% on Couric's ratings, largely because of cutting out the folksy and cutesy.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
And the folks CBS might disagree with you. Year-over-year, Scott Pelley is up 15% on Couric's ratings, largely because of cutting out the folksy and cutesy.
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Maybe you haven't been watching. Pelley is a folksy as Rather used to be. It's that Texas thing. Pelley is up because he's NOT Couric. Brian Williams is pretty down-home for a guy from New Jersey. But the folksiest (if that's a word) has to be Diane Sawyer. I watched her last week and was very surprised at how many rules she breaks.

But if you put my comment back in context, you'll see I was talking about local newscasters.
 
I like David Muir a lot but one thing he does is at the end of his reports he puts in two or three word comment. And the way he does it makes it appear like he HAS to say this and has no interest in actually putting that little "human twist" on it.

I think it makes him look bad, it would be better if he just signed off as "This is David Muir reporting..." It sounds phony when he does it.

I hate when the news puts little things in like "The young man who had dreams of going to college was killed today." As if a guy who chooses not to go to college and works at Burger King, is somehow expendable.

Just tell me the facts, I don't care what your opinion is.
 
Mark said:
Just tell me the facts, I don't care what your opinion is.
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That line falls into the category of things people say they want, but typically don't follow in practice. Because you can get that kind of reporting on PBS, but it gets a fraction of the audience.
 
TheBigA said:
Maybe you haven't been watching. Pelley is a folksy as Rather used to be. It's that Texas thing. Pelley is up because he's NOT Couric. Brian Williams is pretty down-home for a guy from New Jersey. But the folksiest (if that's a word) has to be Diane Sawyer. I watched her last week and was very surprised at how many rules she breaks.
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Yeah. Diane Sawyer's style made Couric look like Edward R. Morrow a lot of times.

In fact, I watched the CBS Evening News about 2 hours ago. I'm not sure I agree with your comparison of Pelley to Rather, although I found Rather to be a perfectly acceptable newsreader. His interviewing and reporting skills, maybe not quite so acceptable.
 
Mark said:
I hate when the news puts little things in like "The young man who had dreams of going to college was killed today." As if a guy who chooses not to go to college and works at Burger King, is somehow expendable.

Just tell me the facts, I don't care what your opinion is.
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In such a case, they didn't say the second kid was expendable. That's your own judgement, nothing more. And if the first kid had such a dream, it happens to be factual, not a matter of opinon.
 
imhomerjay said:
Mark said:
I hate when the news puts little things in like "The young man who had dreams of going to college was killed today." As if a guy who chooses not to go to college and works at Burger King, is somehow expendable.

Just tell me the facts, I don't care what your opinion is.
Click to expand...
In such a case, they didn't say the second kid was expendable. That's your own judgement, nothing more. And if the first kid had such a dream, it happens to be factual, not a matter of opinon.
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It's a fact but it's not a relevant one. He also had a cell phone so why not say, The kid with the cell phone and dreams of going to college was killed today. You wouldn't say it because the fact he had or didn't have, a cell phone isn't relevant to anything.

Neither is whether or not he wanted to go to college. The only reason it's put in is to pull at the heart strings of the viewers. And I have never heard anyone saying, the kid who had dreams of working in a fast food place was killed today.

There's a difference between facts and relevant facts. And fact that are thrown in to make the crime seem worse somehow.
 
Wait, you mean journalism sometimes involves telling a compelling story? Horrors.

Some people want automated robots to deliver their news. Some don't. It appears there are more of the second category than the first. Such is life.
 
Phrases such as "thankfully no one was injured" are common in local newscasts in my area. Yesterday, I heard a local weather reporter use the word "ridiculous" during two different weather segments of the same newscast to describe high temperatures.
 
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