BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

Think you're being rather unfair, noggin. We all know you have insight into television and work in the industry - as do many of us - but it's not necessary to nit-pick at someone's choice of words when actually it was perfectly obvious all he meant she was reporting rather than presenting.

I think he was being perfectly fair. It's nice to know these things, and it was certainly more interesting that whatever BBC News Fix was posting about. Virtually every post he makes, I feel I've learned something.

I'm not sure if you misread the posts or you mistyped, but I feel the difference between producing and reporting is an interesting and important one.

I really wasn't trying to be unfair - but to try and clarify things.

The word "produced" in the TV industry has a pretty specific definition and this is a forum about the TV industry. Just as people often confuse studio and set, I wanted to confirm that the OP was aware that "produced" has quite a specific meaning, and reporters don't always "produce" their own reports.

Because of the way I read the OPs post I read it that he thought that Sophie had produced herself, when this may not have been the case (or on the other hand she might have)

I'm guessing some people here might actually want careers in the industry - so using the right language could be useful. (Reporters report, Producers produce. Sometimes reporters produce, and occasionally producers report!)

Certainly wasn't trying to be nasty.

I think the insinuation that Sophie Long would not have produced that report herself is frankly almost insulting. She is ex-BBC South West, so she would have produced material for Spotlight, as the regions do not have the kind of operating budget to allow for seperate news producers for each story. The reporter, will often be also producer and director of the piece, with at most, a total crew of a cameraman, sound recordist, and picture editor. And in a BBC where budgets are being squeezed more and more, the idea that any news story now has separate producers, outside of long form current affairs, just isn't realistic or economically justifiable anymore.

It's not an insinuation or in any way a criticism. I am fully aware that Sophie is a former BBC English regions reporter, and I am sure that she is perfectly capable of self-producing. What I was saying was that you cannot assume that a reporter has produced their item because they fronted it. I am not saying that Sophie didn't produce the item - just that you can't assume she did.

For network production producers very definitely still have a role - commissioning graphics, sourcing archive and agency material, whilst the reporter is interviewing on-location (producers won't always go on location with the reporter) In some cases the reporter won't make it to the edit at all if their material is fed remotely as track and rushes (rather than being edited on location), or if they need to leave to return to a live position to do a two-way after their report, so someone needs to be in the edit.

Even for reports cut and fed from location (where the camera operator will also be the picture editor - a so-called "shoot edit" - if you need to drop graphics, archive, agency or material from a different location in, someone back at base will have needed to source this and sit across it being dropped in. (Yes - it is now possible to feed archive/graphics to the location if it is somewhere with decent broadband or other internet connectivity - but this is still far from universal)

Gone are the days when every report on a network bulletin would have a dedicated producer - but they do still exist and have a role. (I can't remember the last time I saw a sound recordist on a non-live news shoot)

If the report was just made for the News Channel, and was a voice piece, then it is entirely possible that Sophie did produce it.

I assume that BBC World News and BBC News channel will be doing their previous simulcast routine (I cannot remember the first time), so I assume that it will be BBCWN presenter at the top of the hour & BBCNC presenter at the bottom of the hour.

Matthew Amroliwala (BBCWN) from 0300 to 0500 GMT
Ross Atkins (BBCWN) at 0500 GMT
Gavin Esler (BBCNC) at 0530 GMT

The NC Will also be taking World News Today with Philippa Thomas in the next few minutes.

News channel done it's own toth then crossed over to wnt.

Fixed your post to address 2 things, 1 the difference between 12 and 24 hour clock, 2 the fact that London is one hour ahead of GMT until the end of the month.

My mistake, I messed up the clocks.

If any of you are going to post times it would help that you got them right:
Matthew Amroliwala (BBCWN) from 1500 to 1700 GMT
Ros Atkins (BBCWN) at 1700 GMT
Gavin Esler (BBCNC) at 1730 GMT

BST is GMT + 1.

Also it's Ros Atkins not Ross.

So Gavin Esler is on the News Channel at 1830 BST?



Actually, until 2 hours into 26th October, when we're out of the ugly clutches of time zone jiggery-pokery yet again.