Geoff Hill, the editor of Channel 5 news is coming in to be our guest editor for WINOL tomorrow and he kindly asked us to 'debrief' his 5 o'clock bulletin, the same way that he will debrief our bulletin tomorrow.
So without further ado, the bulletin started with the presenter in vision before going to the top story headline, floods. The floods got a really rather large amount of coverage considering the bulletin is only about 22 minutes long, but we'll come to that later. The quote from David Cameron in the heads was rather weak but I understand why it was used. We've had a lot of trouble over the last few weeks ourselves with using upsot in the heads just for the sake of using it, sometimes ending up with an unnecessary quote. Having Cameron on location at the floods though makes using him an absolute necessity.
We had the opening graphic after that which was a little jarring to some of us since we tend to run the graphic before our headlines; it does help to break things up though and the opening graphic is a hell of a lot nicer than ours. It wouldn't hurt our programme to have a team dedicated to that kind of thing, it really shows how useful having a graphics team is later on in the 5 news bulletin.
The next headlines were about the Noro Virus, Nadine "I'm an MP get me out of here" Dorries, the funeral of an actor in Coronation Street and the announcement of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist. Based on Channel 5s other programming it is easy to see why rather tabloid stories such as Nadine Dorries and the Corrie star were covered in the way they were. The grab from Chris Hoy was odd and I'm assuming the freeze and style of "find out what they had to say" is an editorial choice that is used regularly.
I quite liked the set which sadly we don't have the luxury of (yet!), the second years will do in our lovely new studio though. But I wasn't sure about having the presenter standing throughout the whole bulletin. The convention I've seen in a lot of news is standing during headlines and seated behind a desk for the actual bulletin, something we've tried to replicate but again, the lack of a set makes it look odd.
The bulletin then went into its first story which was arguably its second story as well with two live OBs to reporters on location. It's always really good to get a live OB and especially in a story like this where it really matters about having people on location for updates. With our team it's often difficult to do that and we were, without putting it strongly at all, extremely disappointed not to get our OB from the student demonstrations in London last week, something that would be inexcusable on a national news broadcast. I liked the map graphic in the first flood package; some people I talked to thought it went on a little too long but I think with the information it was pitched about right and helped to illustrate a story where the pictures will be very good but very samey. My favourite part of the package though was the lovely bit of natsot at the end; it was the perfect way to end it and from a production point of view an absolute godsend as it means you can make sure there are no black holes when cutting from the VT to the presenter. The second flood VT however was possibly unnecessary. It's great to hear from reporters across the country but whilst the reports had slightly different focuses, I can't help feeling that the stories could have been combined. The footage from the RNLI was a nice touch though as it helped the package feel vital and current and the leisure centre vox pops were well pitched; having real people comment on this story when it is about real people is the most important thing. I did find the interviews a little odd however as the reporter was still very much in shot, or at least the back of her head was, and presumably this was a stylistic point as it was a recurring feature throughout the bulletin. Something I think I liked but did at first amuse me was the interview with the man, still in his house, leaning out of the window. It was quite jarring visually at first but how else would you have filmed it? Would you have gone tighter and been accused of TV fakery since it would have appeared that he was on the ground floor? It did help give that sense of people being trapped in their own homes though and that set the right tone for the package.
On a separate note, I couldn't quite work out if the bulletin was being filmed on a full set with a screen behind it, or whether it was a green-screen with the strange desk type thing protruding from the floor.
Regardless, the next story was the return of our favourite winter illness, the noro virus. It comes around every year and nobody is particularly surprised so having it is a bit of a non-story; it sort of has to be covered though although the slightly eerie music made it seem more like a plague rather than a sickness bug. I've had the noro virus a couple of years ago, just after Christmas actually and whilst it was horrible, the only real side effect was not being able to eat ALL of the mince pies in the world. Again the reporter was in shot during the interview which I addressed above but the graphic this time, whilst well done, was a little hard to take in. It was very number heavy graphic and I actually found it rather hard to take in all the information and I couldn't tell you what any of the statistics were now. It was similar with the Eon power OOV. I know it was something about paying compensation but I can't for the life of me remember anything about the story, it wasn't visually interesting so I just switched off. Unfortunately this is often the case with OOVs as they are the bottom feeders of news. If a story fails, it becomes an OOV and so that may reflect why the pictures were dull.
Nadine Dorries was next and it was a rather odd story all round. First of all, the fact that Dorries was even in the 'celebrity jungle' is weird but then the story was essentially her coming home to see if she would still have a job as an MP but didn't really have any footage of her. A few pictures were used but it cut to the political editor for comment that didn't add much. We were told that Nadine Dorries was in a part of Westminster that didn't allow cameras; well why didn't we see her in a bit that did? It seemed like covering the story for the sake of covering it. If it hasn't got pictures then should it go in? It is quite often the same dilemma we face on WINOL with our news editor agonising over a story that isn't visually interesting but is important. It's rather comforting to know that the professionals face similar problems to us. We must be doing something right.
It was great to see a 'coming up' as it is something we've been trying to implement over the last few weeks with varying degrees of success. Also, on Channel 5 you have the perfect place to put your coming up, just before the adverts. I did find it a little odd though that coming out of the adverts we were reminded of the floods but nothing new was really added. I know the BBC sometimes repeats their headlines in the same slot as the coming up was played so it is a convention and obviously coming out of the adverts it might be necessary to remind viewers of what's gone, something we fortunately don't have to worry about.
The Yasser Arafat story was well dealt with considering it had to be mostly archive footage. They were the only interviews as well not to feature the back of the reporter's head so why didn't we go a bit closer on the interviewee's faces? It might just be my own personal preference. The Coronation Street star funeral was a little oddly pitched; obviously it is aimed at the Channel 5 audience but I think despite the person's celebrity status, it felt strange to be sort of intruding into people's grief.
It was nice to break up the show again with another OOV and the pictures were pretty great so anyone not interested in Corrie actors no longer with us would have been suitably woken up by a burning crane. I certainly was.
And finally (see what I did there?) we had the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) package which I really enjoyed as the vox pops helped make it the light story it is. Nobody, well it's unlikely anyway, will get angry about the SPOTY awards so the tone was about right for a piece like this. It was a little odd though considering I don't think we saw the face of the reporter that we had the back of their head again. It made it look like we weren't allowed to see their face. It might not have registered on an audience that wasn't full of aspiring journos.
Overall though it was a very enjoyable broadcast and as a person who is traditionally a BBC News viewer it is interesting to see 'how the other half live' so to speak. I look forward to hearing what Geoff has to say about our bulletin tomorrow.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
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