I was about to launch into writing a post about the most irritating habits of local TV news -- starting with the most objectionable: the stand-up -- when I got a surprising email from a producer at Fox Channel 5 News in New York: "We are working on a story about the most annoying things about local news," he wrote. "Yes, we are really doing this. And it is for tonight." I got a similar call from another network; more on that in a minute. So I spoke to the Channel 5 reporter for 10 minutes over Skype and they used one soundbite (which is another annoying thing TV news does, but I'm not complaining):
Points to Fox's Joel Waldman for doing a stand-up ridiculing stand-ups.
Here's why I hate the convention: The stand-up has zero journalistic value. It wastes time. It wastes precious reportorial resource. It turns the world into a mere backdrop for entertainment. It's a fake. Take, for example, all the stand-ups we see these days at the George Washington Bridge because of the Christie scandal. Local TV news does it:
National TV news does it:
There is *no* reporting to be done at the bridge. None. There are no officials there. There are no sources to be found. The victims are long gone. So TV news wastes a reporter's time and a crew's time and the use of expensive equipment going to the bridge, standing there for an hour or more, where there is *nothing* happening, *nothing* to report. Why? Because TV thinks it must have video, style over substance, image über alles.
Think of how TV news covers, say, the ongoing deliberations of a jury in a trial. The anchor tells us what they've told us and what they're going to tell us. The anchor throws to a reporter doing a stand-up in front of a courthouse where, of course, the jury is sequestered and there is nothing to learn and thus nothing to say. The reporter gives us a bit more background and tells us the jury is still out. The reporter throws back to the anchor. The anchor says they'll be sure to tell us when something happens. All that hoo-ha could be replaced with the anchor reading one sentence: "The so-and-so jury is still out." Bonus points if the anchor adds: "For background, see our website."
And on the website, the TV station could have a standing piece explaining the background on the trial for anyone who has missed it. They'd waste less of their airtime and be able to give us, the audience, the public, more stories and/or more substance -- wasting less of our time. More importantly, they'd free up the reporter to, well, *report* something rather than just regurgitating what we already know and nothing new: journalistic dry heaves.
I have taken to shouting at my TV when I see stand-ups in front of crime scenes where nothing has happened in at least 12 hours. Or when I hear anchors, particularly on network news, wasting precious seconds with empty transitions after reports: "Still much to learn" (no shit). Or when I see faked b-roll of someone walking down a hall or typing or talking on a phone to create images and easier edits -- except this isn't reality, it is staged, faked for us (how journalistic is that?). Or when I see team coverage of weather sticking rulers in snow or breaking eggs to fry (or now freeze) or demonstrating that ice is slick or that wind blows. Or when I see someone being interviewed and looking off-camera when they really should be talking to us (Hello? We're over here!). And that is just a list of the silly orthodoxies of presentation on TV news, to say nothing of the quality, depth, originality, utility, wisdom, and incisiveness of the content itself.
I shouted at my TV and it didn't listen... until now. Not only did I get that email from Fox 5 New York, but when I was in Davos last month, I spoke to a crew from Fusion, the new partnership of Univison and ABC, and couldn't resist poking fun at the form, turning from the producer asking questions off-camera and staring instead directly into the camera to beg them to give up this silly, stilted convention. They called me into the studio for a conversation with anchor Jorge Ramos. We talked about the conventions of TV news:
And then Ramos asked me for my advice to Fusion:
I said in my first post on reinventing TV news that I wouldn't dwell on the negative -- preferring in a second post to concentrate on new opportunities -- yet here I have focused on the bad, the silly, the wasteful. For we do need to get rid of the idea that real television news, professional television news must have stand-ups and establishing shots and staged b-roll and frothy transitions. We need to clean away that ancient filigree to free up resources and time to make TV news better, because it can be.
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Here is the complete, 11-minute Fusion conversation: