Dialogue: TV news more professional and accessible

By PAUL NORRIS*

News is an important service to the public. But are viewers getting the service they deserve from television news? In particular, are viewers getting a better or worse service than in the mid-1980s, before television was deregulated and TV3 came on the scene to compete with Television New Zealand?

That is the question prompted by recent reports of the work of PhD student Daniel Cook, who has allocated the stories on Television New Zealand's news bulletins from 1984 to 1996 into categories and found a trend towards less politics and more crime and human interest.

These reports of Mr Cook's work have been notably one-sided and lacking in any balancing comment from broadcasters. So what should we make of headlines claiming TV news is merely a "diet of trivia"? Indeed, what should we make of a researcher who defines sport as "non-news"? Is he really living in the land of the America's Cup, the Silver Ferns and the Canterbury Crusaders?

The implication of Mr Cook's study is that deregulation and competition have damaged the quality of TV news. But to see the 1980s as some golden age of news by which to judge the present is wrong. Such a conclusion flies in the face of the tapes of that period.

TV news now is markedly more professional, the range of stories is wider and they are told more clearly and in a more compelling and accessible style.

The service to viewers has improved in many ways. There is much more news and current affairs programming, both in prime-time and off-peak. We have had our own foreign correspondents bringing us a New Zealand perspective on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the humanitarian tragedies of Bosnia or Rwanda, or Australian politicians wrestling with GST. We can go live to Pentagon briefings on the Gulf War or to our reporters in Fiji or Waitara.

Competition was the spur to evolution and improvement. Newcomer TV3 shook TVNZ news out of its complacent lethargy, obliging it to improve its act or face an exodus of viewers.

In preparing for competition, TVNZ restructured its news hour in 1989, starting a new daily current affairs programme, Holmes. The intention was that Holmes would become a forum for debate on the main issues of the day as part of an attractive mix of items.

The programme continues to provide this service, as seen in its recent coverage of the Fiji coup, the Waitara shooting or the defections from Team New Zealand. Or its coverage of political stories, from policy issues such as housing or superannuation to the performance of Government departments or state-owned enterprises.

Holmes might have its detractors, and the quality of the programme can be variable, but this daily examination of the issues, in early evening prime-time, simply did not exist before 1989. It represents an important addition to the information service provided to viewers.

This service was improved again in 1995 when TVNZ extended the news to an hour, followed by Holmes at 7 pm, effectively displacing an entertainment programme with daily information and current affairs. The result is more news and current affairs on TV One than on BBC 1, which has no daily current affairs programme, no daily forum for debate on national issues for the mass audience.

It is all the more surprising then that Mr Cook's analysis fails to include Holmes at all. Given his concern with the public's need for political information, it seems perverse to ignore the programme which has made a significant contribution to the coverage of politics in recent years.

But has our news become too populist, too eager to embrace the merely trivial and sensational? If broadcast journalism has a mission to inform and explain, it should appeal to a broad, popular audience, not just the elites in society. Broadcasters must pay regard both to the quality of the journalism and to the ratings, as an indicator of viewer support.

So the news must be presented in a way that is relevant to, and accessible to, a mass audience. But this does not excuse poor standards of journalism. It is failures here that provide ammunition for the critics and easy slogans such as "dumbing down" and "diet of trivia."

There are causes for concern. Some stories are run which don't deserve valuable air time. Any news programme needs a leavening of some human interest items, but these should be genuinely newsworthy and not descend to the level of voyeurism or freak shows.

There will always be a temptation to run some stories of no significance or relevance just because there are dramatic pictures - of bizarre accidents, for example. Entertainment news can easily become mere promotion for minor celebrities.

Equally, there are some stories in which coverage is lacking. Context and background are crucial for viewer understanding of many complex stories, particularly on political or economic issues. A focus on the drama or emotion of an event can prevent the reporter from clearly laying out what has happened, with an explanation of why and what the implications are.

The world has moved on since 1984, with the digital revolution about to offer interactivity and more information. For the future, quality news services, providing meaning and coherence in this fast-changing world, become all the more important.

As journalists gather for tonight's Qantas broadcasting media awards, they could well reflect not just on the industry's progress and the success stories, but also on the challenge to address the shortcomings and continue to improve the service to viewers.

* Paul Norris is head of the broadcasting school at Christchurch Polytechnic. He was director of news and current affairs at TVNZ from 1987 to 1994.