The last cap was an error with the “Bushfires” backdrop remaining on screen for the intro to the Italy Bridge Collapse, but at least it gave us a look at a different angle!
Meanwhile in the latest edition of “TCN doing reports that NBN probably should be doing instead”, for tonight’s bulletin they got Hannah Sinclair travelling up to Taree (a good four hours or so drive and a few TV viewing regions away from the TCN coverage area, last I checked) to file a report on the death of a local mother after getting an injection at a local medical centre:
…and incase you were wondering, Nine News Sydney actually opted to cover this story as a short RVO (presumably using footage from NBN) and didn’t appear to have a reporter from the TCN newsroom in Kempsey. So it appears that Taree is close enough for TCN reporters to travel up North, but Kempsey is too far.
Either way, I definitely still think Nine News Sydney should be letting the locally based NBN or Nine regional reporters cover anything (outside of major national news where external help may be needed, of course) that isn’t in their viewing area so the TCN reporters can concentrate on stories happening here in Sydney. Thoughts?
Nine had Damian Ryan even further north in Grafton reporting on a new jail.
The regional reporters are generally less experienced than the metro reporters and Nine would want to ensure that the report is covered from a metro angle.
Yes, I made a note of mentioning that in the “Presenters & Reporters” thread. A bit strange IMO!
Personally I also hope the time and money that TCN’s reporters/crew spend on travelling to these areas for reports that probably could be covered sufficiently by NBN/Nine regional reporters isn’t time/money that could be better spent on things like major Nine News investigations or other really important content for Sydney!
Now I’m well aware that he’s one of the most experienced reporters at the network and much more familiar to Sydney viewers than current NBN News Coffs/Clarence reporters Lara Coffey or Sarah Jane Bell would be, but how much can a Damian Ryan report on a new jail in Grafton really add that an NBN reporter couldn’t? Heck, the NBN reporter(s) might even be better for such a report since they potentially have the knowledge/experience on the local area that a Sydney reporter might not!
And yes, I’m well aware that Seven & Ten also get their Sydney based reporters to travel to regional areas for stories but since Nine have (or at least should have, due to owning and/or operating regional bulletins while Seven & Ten can only really rely on affiliates for regional content) the statewide resources which are only truly rivalled by the ABC, that’s why I mainly focus on TCN when it comes to the critiquing of reporting based in regional areas.
Another upside of using metro reporters is that means local reporters can cover other local news, given that’s there’s only usually 3 of them in each region. Nine has a greater capacity to send out reporters from the metro bureau.
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