ARTS
So Huw Edwards has settled in comfort- ably with the BBC's re-vamped Six O'Clock News. Trevor MacDonald struts his stuff half an hour later for ITV. Jon Snow leads his merry band at seven for Channel 4, and so on — and all's right with the world. Or is it? No, this is not another diatribe about the dumbing down of television and radio, although do not be under any illusion. Of course John Humphrys, Melvyn Bragg, Polly Toynbee and all the others got it absolutely right with their criticisms. And of course the various sensitive channel con- trollers, poor dears, used the usual defence tactic of belittling critics 'approaching the end of their careers', talking about rose- coloured glasses and the golden age that never was. Well, they would, wouldn't they? That is what they are paid for.
This is about the news reporters and cor- respondents who appear on the above men- tioned TV news programmes, as well as Today, World at One, PM and others on radio, who simply cannot read scripts sensi- bly. They read their words in a silly sing- song fashion. They overproject and emphasise the wrong words at the wrong times. They do not know when to lift or lower their voices to give an authoritative edge to their delivery. They are unable to read their words with a natural rhythm. They clearly never really listen to the sound of their own voices. Or, if they listen, they do not hear. They imitate each other, and the result, as far as listeners and viewers are concerned, is that the sense of what they are saying is often lost because of a growing irritation with the whining delivery of their lines. And there is a huge gap between how the presenters of the programmes talk to us and how many of the reporters and corre- spondents tell their stories.
This has nothing to do with regional accents. It has nothing to do with reporting ability — many of the journalists are fine, experienced and talented people. It is specifically about how they read a script for pre-recording over film or for a radio item. After all, the inability to read a script prop- erly may be deemed something of a handi- cap to a broadcaster. I emphasise all this carefully because, as a former BBC corre- spondent myself, I know how badly many of these sensitive souls react to criticism. They really resent it and would reject any suggestion that a little guidance might be helpful. What is particularly interesting is that, in many cases, even the worst offend- ers begin to talk like human beings when they are being interviewed live by the pro- gramme presenter and can take their eyes away from a script. So who are the main offenders? Name names, I hear. Well, let us examine my last
Back to basics
John Parry believes radio and television correspondents should learn how to talk
point first. A classic example is the BBC defence correspondent Mark Laity. Laity is an immensely capable and assured corre- spondent and his nightly appearances, live from Kosovo throughout the crisis, were a model of calm authority. But sit him down at a microphone with a linking script to read and he reverts to a sing-song delivery, wrong in emphasis, wrong in phrasing, wrong in shading, that should have been trained out of him years ago. Similarly, ITN's science correspondent Lawrence McGinty — fine when he is talking to cam- era but, like Laity, loses his feel for empha- sis, phrasing and shading when he is pre-recording voice over film. The same can be said, too, for the BBC economics correspondent Ed Crooks, and the foreign affairs reporter Orla Guerin.
Some of them sound unremittingly bad all the time like ITN's consumer affairs correspondent Chris Choi and reporter Terry Lloyd, and the BBC's reporters Rory Cellan-Jones and the strident Laura Trevelyan, political correspondent Guto Harri, science correspondent Palab Ghosh and, surprisingly, the media correspondent Torin Douglas. You might think that such an experienced reporter who has been immersed in media affairs for many years would have the desire to do something to improve his delivery. It might help for a start if they were each to cast a critical ear across the sound of ITN's Michael Brunson and Mark Austin, or the BBC's John Sar- gent and Andrew Harding, all excellent performers.
Interestingly, most presenters of news programmes such as Anna Ford, Julia Sommerville and Peter Sissons, as well as the aforementioned Edwards, MacDonald and Snow, all talk as though they are hav- ing a civilised conversation with us. As for Radio Four's Peter Donaldson and Brian Perkins, their standards are a benchmark for all broadcasters to measure themselves against. Again let me reiterate. I am not talking about accents or even the timbre of the voice, let alone the quality of the reporting. I am talking about how to talk. There are always, of course, exceptions. As far as presenters are concerned, one is Channel Four's Alex Thomson, the merci- fully irregular stand-in for Jon Snow. His uncontrolled, up and down delivery is made even worse by his cocky, aggressive manner. At least he has to hand over to Kirsty Lang for the 'other news of the day' during the programme. She is one the BBC should not have let go. And over at the BBC's Nine O'Clock News, another occa- sional stand-in, George Alagiah, a fine for- eign correspondent, has a drearily soporific delivery. At the risk of being labelled sexist, could he have been chosen for his good looks? And if so, at the risk of being sexist again, why is Kirsty Young still languishing in the backwater of Channel 5 — a perfect example of an attractive woman presenting the news, sounding good with absolute authority. I know nothing about Ms Young but I wonder why a major channel has not snapped her up. All of this makes you wonder why news producers do not occasionally listen with a little more care to how reporters are voic- ing their scripts. They should be listening out also for mispronunciations such as and ITN's Shiulie Ghosh is a prime offend- er — the difference between the noun protest and the verb protest. And they should be ironing out silly mannerisms such as extending the sound 'is' to 'eees' at the end of words such as 'possibilities' and 'facilities'. Sad to say, it is a quirk devel- oped by the otherwise inestimable Kate Adie and too many lesser mortals have fol- lowed her example. Another quirky habit which is becoming fashionably commonplace at the moment is emphasising the word 'will' whenever it appears, destroying the rhythm of the rest of the sentence. Any competent producer should be able to point out these errors. But the problem there is that many news and current affairs producers are little more than over-promoted researchers who are incapable of making such judgments. And in any case they may justifiably argue that reporters who have come so far in their careers should be able to hear for themselves what is wrong.
The real issue goes back to basic train- ing. Reporters are not actors but, when they move their careers into radio and tele- vision, their voices are just as important. Only being a good reporter is simply not enough.
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