Reason No. 387 why I hate TV news

Posted on May 6, 2008 by pat

Today I was out covering an event, while a TV news crew was there too, and it became quite apparent the difference between newspaper (Web) and TV journalists.

We were both covering wounded veterans learning how to use Segways to increase their mobility — a tailored made story for visual storytelling. We all get that.

My team had a video camera too, microphones, DSLRs, all that fun stuff. What we didn’t have was the audacity to ask people we were “journaling” to do things so we can get shots. The TV crew was telling the Segway riders to line up a certain way, move a certain way, come into the frame a certain way. All so the TV station could get the news exactly how they wanted it.

Is that even news?

Journalists — particularly TV journalists — are constantly under fire from people like John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and others. Why? Because TV news has made us all so jaded.

It’s just one big dog and pony show. It’s set shots. It’s ridiculous stand ups with anchors preening for the camera.

It’s anything but raw or immediate. The Web, is raw and immediate. My generation is not a big fan of TV news, and people like Stewart and Colbert have hit on why.

That’s why I don’t think we should pattern our Web video after TV at all. It’s too glossy. It’s too fake.

It’s horribly overproduced.

This is the Social Generation. We don’t mind baring our souls and revealing our warts.

We expect the same from the news.

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  • http://newswireblog.wordpress.com Azeem Ahmad

    You could not have described any better the reasons why I chose Online Journalism over Television Journalism any day. Providing ‘raw news’ as you put it, is much more rewarding than simply ‘setting up’ news.

  • http://blog-o-blog.com Zac Echola

    That happens a lot in larger markets. Not so much in smaller markets, where I’ve worked (in broadcast news) and where I know other people.

    With video, there’s a certain element of control and manipulation, more so than you’d find in typical beat reporting or photography. You have to control light and sound and you have to edit it a way that tells a story which may not be exactly as you saw it.

    I’ve seen national news (mostly TV news magazines) do stuff like this, too. I hate it and think it crosses a very clear ethical line when you aren’t upfront about your directing shots.

  • Richard Hackett

    And some Denver TV reporters are upset that the AP won’t pick up their original reporting of stories. Trust (as in not faking video) goes a long way.

    http://www.westword.com/2008-03-20/news/credit-is-due/full

  • http://www.jeffhaines.com Jeffrey A. Haines

    During my internship with the Philadelphia Inquirer I shot a lot of web video for the paper, and I had frequent run-ins with local news crews where they would exhibit the behavior you described above.

    I was quite disturbed while documenting a mass balloon release by students to celebrate a mural’s completion, when a local news producer spent about 20 minutes getting his shot set and making the students and the mural’s sponsors wait–action that greatly decreased the true excitement of the moment, and created something almost phony and manufactured.

    My news-shooting philosophy is to capture whatever you can while you can–and if you didn’t manage to quite get the perfectly framed shot, so be it. I completely agree with your post.

  • Casey Cora

    If newspaper.com’s get it together and start pumping out video that’s worth a damn, then people will have no reason to turn to the TV newscast to have their intelligence insulted.

    And I think that’s where the so-called Social Generation steps in. Done right, we could show people that news doesn’t have to be phony. We literally have the chance to reinvent how it’s done.

  • http://patrickbeeson.com Patrick Beeson

    You should have shot video of the TV crew setting up the shot and posted it on YouTube. Now THAT’S a story!

  • http://www.patthorntonfiles.com pat

    @Casey,
    We do have the chance to reinvent how things are done. And I hope we do.

    Unfortunately, many young journalists are being taught how to be broadcast journalists — online. Many old broadcast people are now finding jobs as professors or as consultants, teaching seminars.

    It’s scary, because what they consider good video, we don’t. I hope enough young journalists resist this sad attempt by many broadcast journalists to try to stay relevant in a new medium. It’s one thing to teach how to shoot video, edit, storyboard, etc. It’s another thing to teach how to tart up the news.

    @Patrick,
    That’s a fantastic idea. I have to remember to do that sometime.

  • Casey Cora

    Pat..that’s why your post about letting Web natives have a say makes so much damn sense. In fact, your timing is downright scary, because that exact thought hasn’t left my head for weeks.

    I don’t know too much about their operation, but we could all learn from the people running the show at vbs.tv. If you haven’t seen that site, check it out. Buried under the whiny hipsterism in the presentation of their news stories is a sea change in good online storytelling.

    Their recent 12-part series called “Toxic Garbage Island,” about the harm done to the ocean by our culture’s reliance on plastics, drew hundreds of comments. Most simply say “thanks.” That’s as good as it gets in my book.

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