Jack is a fantastic reporter, he absolutely deserves the role. There are plenty of well-known reporters who were in Uni when reporting.
It’s funny how no one can criticise his report, only the fact that he’s younger.
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Since when were journalism degrees any guarantee someone would be a good journo?
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Exactly. Many the best credentialed journalists did not even attend university and started as cadets many many years ago. They have become the most accomplished and lauded journalists. You don’t always need a degree.
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Very few journalists I’ve ran into over the past decade have degrees in journalism. Many of them have started out as assistants or Autocue operators. You either have a talent and passion for journalism or you don’t. A degree on paper means very little in this industry.
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The SNSW/ACT local bulletin is actually pretty decent for what it is to be honest.
I didn’t bother to watch the QLD version when I lived there, but I find myself watching the SNSW bulletin every now and again now that i’m in the area.
The bulletin doesn’t feel like a hodgepodge of random hyper local stories… it actually feels like a bulletin designed for a larger area.
The first story tonight was the perfect example, it was all about Australia Day celebrations, and the story mentioned and showed clips of events from each of the markets, with mention of what was happening in Canberra, Wollongong, etc. all packaged nicely in the first story and followed up with a live cross. It was well done imo
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Also worth noting - Natalia Cooper began her journalism career before she turned 20.
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…and Jack would know these people because he went to the trouble to establish contacts and relationships in the industry before he finished school. He isn’t the son of an industry insider born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s been persistent and demonstrated initiative by spending the time to travel hours from his home to attend work experience opportunities in Sydney. He put himself out there, has been noticed and rewarded with an opportunity. Good luck to him.
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Yep. Some journalism qualifications are not worth the paper they’re written on.
They can pass you through a course and maybe teach media law but not now to do the job day to day.
Not the same for every course or every person that’s been through them but you need a qualification to practice law. You shouldn’t need one for journalism.
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I cannot believe that this is even a discussion. As someone with a journalism degree I can definitely say that the qualification doesn’t mean much. Experience is experience and Jack has more than most grads. If he didn’t have talent and potential 9 wouldn’t have hired him, it’s as simple as that.
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Jack is a great presenter and it is excellent that Nine has recognised the talent and offered a job.
With the reduction of local news on TV and even radio it makes it harder for young up coming presenters to get their start in the industry with the big players not having cadet programs.
I personally think their license to broadcast should be dependent on contributing to the local community by providing appropriate news bulletins and also employing local people to present and produce local news bulletins. Providing opportunities to young potential journalists as part of the process instead of taking money from the regions as advertising revenue and giving little back.
I hope Jack gets some national exposure and is on our screens for years to come.
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I’m still convinced that splitting the bulletin in half would provide a better viewer experience. ACT/Illawarra and Central West/Riverina.
Would allow for a longer and less crowded weather segment and they could always share stories to pad out the 22 mins.
Pre-record one bulletin at 5pm and do the other live.
They should probably go back to having a hour long bulletin with local windows like they were doing prior to Covid but improve the presentation by having proper over the shoulder graphics for a start. They should have the same presentation quality as the 6pm Sydney news no excuses.
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Hard to disagree with this - but the economics may not be there. Nine now has the viewing figures for both formats, so it would be a viewer per dollar decision.
Though 7 Tasmania puts out a 60 minute bulletin with anything between 12 and 19 minutes of local content and gets around half the TV audience. So it does work. Not to mention NBN.
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I absolutely agree on this.
Coming from QLD, where the stories were from places thousands of kilometres apart, the current format seems a lot better to me.
But your suggestion would make it a lot better again. It’s not a bad bulletin, but it is odd to have city stories from Canberra and Wollongong mixed in with small town stories from Orange.
To their credit, they do seem to give those smaller towns just as much air time as they do for the cities, but it is also odd having those minor stories chucked in.
A pre-recorded Riverina/Central West bulletin with look lives, recorded at say 4:45pm, then a live ACT/Illawarra bulletin at 5:30pm would be great, but obviously that would be considered too much effort for Nine, particularly if the current format is working for them ratings wise.
In an ideal world, the ACT/Illawarra area is large enough that it could easily sustain a full metro-standard hour long bulletin, but that would never happen.
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The Nine News Local format put into 1-hour form (no windows etc) could work as well. The regions might actually have some local sports coverage and a better weather report…
QLD can’t change slot unless Darwin shifts presentation back north though.
Half the audience of what?
I still think the QLD bulletin should be split into at least two so the stories aren’t covering so many kilometers. North & South or North, Central and South.
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Indeed, the audience size could make this viable. As a fun fact, in 1989 CTC Canberra did something like this. The one-hour bulletin from Canberra was beamed into the Illawarra with NBN style opt-outs. Didn’t last long.
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Half the audience of television viewers. So, if you take all the people watching TV, half of that number.
Ah yea - it gets a massive share.
Do any other bulletins in Australia get a 50% share?