No need to pad news bulletins
SINCE March 7, ITV News has been a one-hour weekday bulletin from 6.30pm. Many welcomed this development as ITV, with nothing like the resources of BBC or Sky News, has a well-deserved reputation for exclusives and insightful reporting. It was the TV broadcaster which exposed the mock Downing Street press conference during the Christmas season and, later, the partygate one last April on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral.
This is the biggest ITV News expansion in 20 years. It is pouring millions into the project with 27 new journalists, producers, camera operators and video operators. It is having new correspondents for Scotland and Wales, is producing more content outwith London, and has the base of a 3.2 million audience, the most popular commercial TV news service. It is impartial and independent and not so easily leaned on by the UK Conservative Government.
The problem, so far, has been the fact that the one-hour bulletin has had very blatant padding. One obvious case is the weather which has now been dumbed down to a song-and-dance segment. The public wants a detailed analysis of UK weather. Gone is academically-qualified meteorologist Lucy Verasamy, replaced by rather Marmite presenter Alex Beresford, who chunters on, unnecessarily, about lambing, the Northern Lights or even the weather abroad.
There is no need for padding. In Israel, it could examine the Family Reunification Law, one of the most racist and discriminatory laws in the world affecting 30,000 Palestinians. Or it could highlight the draconian laws by Israel to steal Palestinian land, illegal under the Oslo Agreement 1993.
It could cover North Korea, which has stepped up launching parts of an ICBM, prohibited by the UN. It will soon have one which can reach the US.
Then there is Iran, which regularly fires ballistic missiles as a warning to Israel, but only the one landing by the US Consulate in Iraq’s Erbil got much coverage.
Closer to home it could focus on the lorry tailbacks at Dover, now visible to space satellites, or the new EU entry/ exit system with biometric tests at the border soon.
How about the UK desire to change the Northern Ireland protocol or the devastating impact Brexit has had on Scotland’s GDP?
An ITV News bulletin certainly does not need the current padding.