Clearly 'silly season' or Christmas, as its more commonly known, has come early this year at ITV news! Health editor Rachel younger is currently in Washington, obviously covering for Robert Moore and Penny Marshall, social affairs editor, reporting on a political non-story of the by-election. Now I understand reporters/ correspondants have leave/ holiday.etc and also have families/ lives outside of their job roles and are not chained to their onscreen specialism, but is it really professional or appropriate and the best use of their talents, experience and job roles, using such people for what amounts to holiday cover? This would never (hardly ever) happen on the bbc but ITN/ ITV, on much lesser resources and funds, are repeat offenders of this. This is such a pet hate (can't be the only one, given by ratings) of mine and really undermines much needed and much worked for, I might add and congratulate on, credibility needed for its onscreen talent and by non-regular viewers of their bulletins and adds to the whole sorry saga with the new news at ten and its demotion and promotion to anchor of its programmes as a whole.
Now I understand reporters/ correspondants have leave/ holiday.etc and also have families/ lives outside of their job roles and are not chained to their onscreen specialism, but is it really professional or appropriate and the best use of their talents, experience and job roles, using such people for what amounts to holiday cover?
I'd suggest you probably don't understand it considering you started this thread. Most senior reporters will have started in junior roles, often in a different area of expertise. If you're trying to get your foot in the door and are offered a role as health correspondent when you want to be political editor chances are you'll take it. Most reporting roles on the news ultimately come down to politics anyway.
TV
TV Dan
She's hardly inexperienced... Rachel previously worked as Sky’s Political Correspondent, Europe Correspondent and also had a stint as Channel 4 News’ North of England Correspondent.
Clearly 'silly season' or Christmas, as its more commonly known, has come early this year at ITV news! Health editor Rachel younger is currently in Washington, obviously covering for Robert Moore and Penny Marshall, social affairs editor, reporting on a political non-story of the by-election. Now I understand reporters/ correspondants have leave/ holiday.etc and also have families/ lives outside of their job roles and are not chained to their onscreen specialism, but is it really professional or appropriate and the best use of their talents, experience and job roles, using such people for what amounts to holiday cover? This would never (hardly ever) happen on the bbc but ITN/ ITV, on much lesser resources and funds, are repeat offenders of this. This is such a pet hate (can't be the only one, given by ratings) of mine and really undermines much needed and much worked for, I might add and congratulate on, credibility needed for its onscreen talent and by non-regular viewers of their bulletins and adds to the whole sorry saga with the new news at ten and its demotion and promotion to anchor of its programmes as a whole.
Its a better use of resources to have a reporter reporting on a story outside their main area than them being sat in the office on Facebook or Twitter waiting for a relevant story to break (especially in areas such as health where many of the stories are probably on the radar of large news organisations in advance and are not totally unexpected).
And with all that is happening with Donald Trump having a senior reporter covering holiday (which after the election US based staff deserve) isn't a bad idea anyway
And the BBC often do the same with their royal correspondents when there is no royal events planned, BBC sports staff often cover outside their main sports, and a lot of BBC Business presenters cover main news presenting on a semi-regular basis.
Last edited by AlexS on 6 December 2016 6:27pm - 2 times in total
And of course Robert Moore will have had quite a busy time of it of late during the US election campaign, and nothing is expected to happen until Trump takes over from Obama next year. Also domestic politics has been busy and is relatively quiet with Brexit just rumbling on with no actual action.