ITV News

I recently had the mis-fortune to sit through the Evening News and even compared with just a few years ago it's gone to the dogs.

I'm sorry, but that really does seem an accurate decision. It lacked anything vaguely resembling authorative journalism (although perhaps that's more a reflection of current society). It really did make me think of ABC's World (?) News Tonight.

I just wondered what the hell has happened?

Better hope the gunman doesn't have a foreign sounding name all we'll have an incident room set up to ring in about immigration.

Tom Bradby messed up abit at the end of his piece to camera on the evening news! Mark and Katie were like: afterwards! He's usually pretty good though with the live stuff.

Lol, I caught that too, Mark said 'He just can't get his words out' and him and Katie were like as said above, but I don't think Mark realised he was on camera when he said that!

"Do YOU know any Koreans in YOUR area? We want to hear from YOU. Send YOUR pics to asianpics@itv.com, that's ASIANPICS@ITV.COM. Now over to Chris Choi who's lynching foreigners in our newsroom tonight, Chris."

Hmmm.... I'm impressed to see Mark live in Virginia, only last night he was in London. Oh dear...that means we will see Action Mark ''interviewing'' witnesses minus his tie with ridiculously huge cuffs on his shirt and a contrived walk down some kind of corridor or pathway, pretending to be talking to his guest.

I have to say, the programme has been put together very badly, too many ''erms'' and bad links. But I suppose it's all been very rushed.

What was the point of sending Mark Austin all the way to Virginia to present tonight's news? Do ITV seriously think an experienced reporter like John Irvine, who is living in the US, cannot do as good a job as Mark Austin? I really don't understand ITV's fascination with sending Mark Austin all over the place to anchor about 10 minutes per bulletin? It can't even be justified by saying he's doing other things, as there's no News Channel now. He literally presents for about 20 minutes per day when he's on these jaunts. It makes me laugh - ITV News are always bleeting on about climate change/global warming (i.e. the whole Big Melt thing) yet they're adding a load of carbon into the atmosphere by dispatching Austin to every corner of the globe.

because that was the deal when he was given the job and he's an experienced overseas correspondent.

But what does it add to the output that a reporter couldn't? What difference does it make having Austin on location rather than in the studio? It may be in his contract, but I want to know what value it has.

It seemingly adds importance to the story, the focus groups must like it

All the channels do it and many times it's been debated on here when one channel has sent their presenter out to the scene and the other hasn't

Considering all the fuss ITV News make about climate change, it is all a bit hypercritical really (though to be fair the plane would have been going anyway)


How long till George Bush invades South Korea then?


Also, we may have dismissed it but The Sun was right - the news is back at 10pm on Sunday. Don't really make sense why to be honest - possibly try and keep the inheritence from Kingdom at 9pm and have people watch ITV News rather than switch over to avoid David Gest.


P.S. Although it may seem pointless at times, to be fair I do actually like having the presenter on location - and arguably no one is better at anchoring on location than Mark Austin - it is really how he's made his name.

That would be funny. Bush invading South Korea. Kind of history repeating itself backwards.

Well the BBC's 10 have now got Emily Maitlis at the scene

Based on that, ITV have definally sent out a more high profile presenter in Mark Austin