How to be a newsreader
Jeremy Paxman has said ‘any fool’ can read the headlines on TV. Nicholas Owen, a newsreader for 30 years, begs to differ
It was a fairly quiet day for stories – not much to get excited or anxious about. I was in what was then called the BBC News 24 studio, to present for a few hours. Most of what I read out was scripted, and it was just a matter of sounding sensible and hoping that the words on the autocue matched the words on the scripts and, most important, those coming out of my mouth.
Suddenly in my earpiece came the producer’s urgent voice: ‘Nick, we hear Boris Yeltsin is dead. Go with it.’
There was no help from any script nor from the news-agency reports constantly updating on the computer screen on my desk. The BBC had Yeltsin’s demise to itself.
My job was to do what journalists like me love to do. To break some news. That day in 2007, I could remember only three things about Boris. He was the first democratically elected President of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. He once stood on a tank to defy some rebels, though I wasn’t sure why or when. And he was a big-time drunk.
So, for quite a long time, I recycled those sparse recollections while telling viewers, ‘We are just hearing this,’ and ‘We’ll be bringing more as we get it.’
That was OK. The trouble was I began to have a nagging doubt. I had got the right bulky Russian, hadn’t I? Was I thinking of Gorbachev, that fellow with the red splodge on his nearly bald head?
I ploughed on, a few more dribs and drabs of memory coming to my aid – until eventually confirmation came from Moscow, and the world stepped in to offer its thoughts and fill the airwaves.
The episode was an example of what the boss of ITN, where I worked so happily for 23 years, told me made a good newscaster. ‘A well-stocked mind’ was essential.
He said that if things on air were not going to plan, ‘Tell ’em.’ Be straight with your audience. With Yeltsin, my brief memories were interspersed with my admitting we didn’t know much, asking for forgiveness while we found out.
That was an example of ‘rolling news’ – the most fun for a presenter. You could never be sure what was happening next. It helps answer the eternal question: ‘Do you write your own scripts?’
For rolling news, you can’t. You go in the studio for your allotted hours, and mostly you read out what has been written by some hard-pressed producer.
The presenter can have much more direct input when it comes to the fixed big bulletins on the BBC and ITV. I was lucky to front all of them on various occasions. There is the time to mull over the scripts, and at least have a say in how they are worded. The headlines are the shop window, and bulletin-presenters normally write those.
So I can’t agree with Jeremy Paxman, who recently said, ‘Newsreading is an occupation for an articulated suit... Any fool can do it.’
Television journalists tend to be bright, sharp people. So disagreements about the content of bulletins are bound to surface. My thought was always to reserve strong, divergent opinion until it really mattered. Only a handful of times did I fall out with an editor over either a bulletin or a segment of the 24-hour programming.
Can you keep your own emotions out of newsreading? Of course you should. I very rarely found it difficult. One story did test me. After Jamie Bulger was murdered, aged two, in Liverpool, in 1993, I was presenting for his funeral. His coffin was tiny. Walking behind, staring up at the coffin, was his father, tears streaming behind his spectacles. That had me on the edge of tears.
No one actually teaches you how to ‘do’ the news. I was incredibly fortunate to pick up the essentials of the craft from some superb practitioners. I began on TV in the Newcastle newsroom of the BBC. The main man was Mike Neville, a one-time actor who was a supremely good presenter. At ITN in London in the early 1980s, the main presenter was the late Peter Sissons.
Neither actually taught me anything. I studied them carefully and tried to learn.
I also recalled the premier newsreaders of the past. As a youngster fascinated by current affairs who always wanted to be a journalist, I particularly admired Richard Baker (1925-2018).
After he retired, ‘Dickie’ Baker was on the Tube one day. A man, somewhat startled, said, ‘It is you, isn’t it? Ah, don’t tell me. You are – mmm, er…’ ‘Actually, I’m Richard Baker.’ The man frowned. ‘No, no. That’s not it…’
I know the feeling. I’ve been mistaken for Jon Snow, or my pal John Suchet.
Newsreading was the perfect way to round off my 55 years in journalism. I’d reported everything from local news to big business stories during seven years at the Financial Times. I was ITN’S Royal Correspondent in the turbulent 1990s.
I treated every story as important – that’s what a broadcast presenter has to bring to the screen.
If I didn’t show I was interested, how could I expect the audience to be ?