Jessica Ridley & Lia Harris did an alright job at covering the event for Seven & Ten respectively, but neither seemed to interact with the kids as much (a few vox pops and that’s about it, judging by the clips I’ve seen online) as Mike Dalton did. His report was the best/most enjoyable of the three IMO.
Of course others may disagree, but this is something of a theme I’ve noticed with the fluff/puff piece reports here in Sydney recently. Ten and Seven (especially after the departure of Damien Smith in very early 2017) aren’t too bad, but seem to have a slightly too serious approach to their coverage presentation compared to the typical Mike Dalton report on Nine.
We definitely should expect serious news to be presented in a way that commands professionalism and authoritativeness but for more light-hearted news like kids Christmas parties, I want to see the reporters lighten up a bit with their reporting and perhaps even trying to out-do each other, as we’ve seen with “Damo v Dalts” & “Damo v Harves” battles during events like the Royal Easter Show in years gone by.
As per usual, I’d be interested to hear what others think!
I always thought you were mocking Mike. He is actually a good journalist and a great writer.
Also 10 years of having the weeknight Brisbane team of Andrew, Melissa, Wally and Garry next year. With the revolving doors at 7, it is something I would be promoting.
Perhaps gently, but how can I completely mock one of the market’s more unique reporters?
Let’s leave the serious bagging (while at the same time, remaining respectful - can’t stress that enough) to people who are inappropriately light-hearted during segments which should command professionalism and authoritativeness, such as Tim Bailey’s weather forecasts on whatever they’re branding Ten’s 5pm bulletin as these days!
Something I should’ve mentioned last night, Nine News Sydney’s viewer competition for the final week of the 2018 ratings season - graphics unfortunately aren’t produced in HD though:
Cameron Williams did the voiceover for these spots and there’s also rare usage of his Promo Endtag at the end of this, which thankfully is in native HD:
“In this time of crisis it isn’t easy to get supplies, but one supermarket is readily accessible and you won’t believe what you’ll save! Bushfire BONANZA Sale!!”
This is from ninenews.com.au
I find it strange the way they use the titles (i.e. the name of the reporter etc) I wonder if this would work with the normal news too? I find it a bit cleaner, though what they have is the generic style for all news programs world wide, it would be interesting if they made it quite unique.
Now it’s probably unrealistic to expect commercial TV to stop airing these types of “reports” (and I use the term very loosely), but surely ACMA needs to change the laws so that viewers are made clearly aware of paid news segments? I reckon there needs to be “This is a paid segment” disclaimers at the start and/or end, similar to the type seen on infomercials.
I don’t remember those, are you sure they weren’t just mocks here? Seven did have white text on a transparent background back in the early-2000s (final Nightly News package IIRC).
This is not paid advertising. The commercial networks do not accept payment for news stories. Would be an absolute uproar if they did. Why pay for stories like these anyway when they rate well (believe it or not, they do).
