ITV News: now edited by everyone

I under­stand that today is the day ITV News moves to a sys­tem where report­ers edit their own TV packages.

How can you tell someone new to video edit­ing? Well, it’s always the sound that gives it away. That, and the going to black and flash frames.

Hav­ing pion­eered multi-skilling in TV news­rooms what would my thoughts be? Well, for one video edit­ing has become a lot sim­pler. We’re not quite at the point where it’s no more com­plic­ated than word pro­cessing, but it’s get­ting there.

For a well-resourced news pro­grammes — on one level — it makes sense. But work­ing to dead­line, the abil­ity of a num­ber of people per­form­ing syn­chron­ously to out­per­form one indi­vidual is pretty much given. And, if you have a news chan­nel, the eco­nom­ies of scale are pretty simple. Peter Hor­rocks is unlikely to view this move as giv­ing ITV a com­pet­it­ive advant­age in news.

Still it is going ahead, and the real meas­ure of any multi-skilling effort is the num­ber of hold-outs. Which high pro­file cor­res­pond­ents miss train­ing days or feign incom­pet­ence? You have to judge multi-skilling suc­cess by the num­ber of refuseniks. The more, the unmerrier.

In my exper­i­ence, good TV report­ers tend to make good edit­ors. The prob­lem is that the good ones are those that tend to get the extra resources. Not that ITV News is flush with resources. After all, there’s lean, and there’s size zero…

But when ITV boss Michael Grade’s bonus comes in at one fif­teenth of ITN’s budget for ITV News — ded­ic­ated video edit­ors are a lux­ury Grade’s vaca­tion plans can’t afford.

When can you use off the record quotes?

My two penn’orth on Sam­antha Power from the Guard­ian:

For me as a broad­cast journ­al­ist, the cam­era and the micro­phone are the record. You can’t unsay things to a record­ing device or speak­ing live, only apo­lo­gise or cringe. But in con­ver­sa­tion, dif­fer­ent stand­ards apply.

I was at ITN in the early 1990s when John Major referred to his col­leagues as “bas­tards” in a TV inter­view with ITN’s polit­ical editor. The Beeb’s Nick Jones over­heard the remarks. BBC bosses shared ITN’s view that these post-match mut­ter­ings were off the record so Jones leaked his notes to the Observer, which broke the story.

I think the tech­no­logy has changed all the rules. ITN/BBC were oper­at­ing within their con­ven­tions, the Observer within theirs, but now politi­cians would be cagier — broad­casters can blog those off-mike moments.

In Power’s case, utter­ing “off the record” imme­di­ately after you’ve said some­thing bet­ter left unsaid is no protection.

Breaks off News At Ten

News At Ten returned. With no com­mer­cial break. Delib­er­ate? Per­man­ent? Odd feel­ing in what was oth­er­wise a very famil­iar pro­gramme pack­age (well, I did work on it years ago). But down to busi­ness. You want an old-fashioned cri­tique of an old-fashioned show? Start with the Bongs (the head­lines).

  • Hasnat Khan exclusive/Diana
  • Geor­gina Edmonds murder
  • Ant­arc­tic spe­cial report
  • Fabio Capello

Edmonds after Diana felt like too much crime at the top, and going through the show you have a lot of crime in the faux part one.

1. Hasnat Khan speaks — Neil Con­nery VT
2. Diana inquest — James Mates VT
3. North­ern Rock — Tom Bradby VT + live

4. Wrap: Ipswich murder/Peter Hain/Weddell reax

5. Edmonds murder — Penny Mar­shall VT

Still to come: Capello/Lifeboat rescue

[Place where the break should have been…]

6. Spe­cial Assign­ment — Bill Neely VT + live
Promo: Neely vlog

7. Capello — Geraint Vin­cent VT

Recap

8. Life­boat Res­cue — Tim Rogers VT

So seven pack­ages, two lives and a wrap — two of the pack­ages themed, “Spe­cial Assign­ment” plus “And finally.”

The style was spare and unin­trus­ive. Khan was a good get, but needed some con­text to shake the dust off his rather dull pro­nounce­ments. Diana going to live in Pakistan! Tell me more…

The story bal­ance made it feel a little too crime-time for prime time. The Neely vlog promo (which looked inter­est­ing) was given a lacklustre promo. But a very simple, clean, deliv­er­able programme.

The Life­boat Res­cue felt awk­ward as an “And finally.” Not exactly life-affirming — more an RTA on an inter­na­tional sea lane.

The only thing it lacked was a little of wit. Doubt­less that will come with time. The big audi­ence test will come on day two. For ITN’s sake, I hope it works.

There’s not much not to like here — which isn’t to damn with faint praise, but simply to point out that with news view­ers the less you can do to drive them away, the more will stay. But like bat­tery chick­ens, the odd sur­prise is good for them.

You can watch the Beeb altern­at­ive here. The set piece is John Simpson in Zim­b­abwe. Big old name plus big inter­na­tional story lead­ing equals state­ment of intent, and a con­ser­vat­ive reply to a con­ser­vat­ive challenge.

P.S. Re-read John Hockenberry’s cry of pain — You Don’t Under­stand Our Audi­ence — in case you think any of this really will shore up the crum­bling edifice.