ITV News

Agreed.
The Sun may be this country's most popular newspaper, but it's BBC News that is the most popular television news service. A very odd situation, but it's a situation that ITN and - more importantly - ITV should realise. It's clearly not doing them any favours to have such a disgustingly fluffy approach to the news.

Tonight's News at Ten was... well... embarrassing, as far as the choice of language is concerned. I used to laugh off those who compared ITV News with "The Day Today", but it's so alike that particular satirical programme lately that's it's completely and utterly dumbfounding, not to mention depressing. -- to use typical ITV News terminology, of course.

I'm like a broken record, I know, but:
"The tranquil waters and harbours belie the mayhem..." and "...a sense that something has changed here forever... that bloody violence can happen in a beautiful place like this..."
Is it me or is it getting worse?

I feel sorry for Julie a little bit - she has to read them, when she even herslef knows their terrible!

Do you know what, I've been getting that sense from her expressions and the way she reads the script lately, particularly over the last few days... but perhaps I'm just overly paranoid.

no I agree , that's in part why I said it tbh. Like you say, I think you can just tell by the way she reads it that she doesn't really want to be.

Lets just hope that come the end of the year that they relise the relaunch hasn't been sucessful and revert back to somethink like the old News at Ten. Although TV companies seem to have a habit of keeping great designs, like the old NAT for just over 18 months and keeping not very good ones for about 5 years!

As has been said on here so many times, you couldn't fault the old NAT !

Well despite the tabloid language, I think I prefer ITV News's stance on the story compared to that of the BBC, who seem very eager to almost excuse the murderer's actions wherever possible in their reporting.

Firstly, they have a selection of photographs of Bird to choose from. They started off by using a neutral passport-style photo yesterday. Today, however, they switched to a jolly photograph of Bird grinning, having a good time, surrounded by friends/colleagues. Surely that is how the victims should be remembered, not him?

The BBC have used casual terminology such as, 'police are now trying to establish the reasons why Derrick Bird lost his temper'. Oh, so not a motive then? They have also interviewed psychologists throughout the day who have been trying to interpret and explain the murderer's actions.

What message does all of this send to other mentally volatile nutters who may one day think of doing something similar to what happened yesterday? Society treats (or maybe that should be 'treated') people like Derrick Bird with utter contempt because it sends a clear message that we do not tolerate these things and it is not acceptable. We will not empathise or treat you as a victim, we will not waste time contemplating reasons or try to understand you, you will not be remembered as the kind, jolly, generous man from down the pub.

No. Your reputation will be well and truly shattered. So don't even think of it.

This prospect of contempt and hatred is an extremely effective deterrent against crime, and broadcasters should remember that. I'm not suggesting the media should paint the murderer as Satan incarnate a-la Myra Hindley, but they - particularly the BBC - really should be more neutral in their portrayal and conscious of the effect their approach may have in terms of the public's perception of the murderer.

I don't think the murderer really cares? They're going to kill themselves anyway. People painted a dim view of Adolf Hitler and people still worship him today, the BBC have valid points, whilst what the murder did was wrong, I'm not condoning it for one moment, but something must have happened. Various people had said he was a normal person and they didn't expect him to do it, but he did. Something must have happened to make him blow up like that. Just because the BBC chose to explore that rather than just giving a stern message of hatred doesn't mean they are giving bad coverage, they've already explored the unfortunate victims and are now trying to get inside the killers mind to give some reasoning to the incident.

The message of a bad reputation won't work in all cases. They don't always do these things for notoriety, Chie. Whilst some of the killings were random, there was some 'reasoning' (that's inverted commas because it's not my point of view but the killer saw reasoning) in some of them.

It's just a shame that nobody noticed the anger building up within the killer.

Could we get back on topic anytime soon, do you reckon? After all, this is a television presentation forum - The Lounge is at your disposal...

People worship Adolf Hitler, but they are rightly treated as social outcasts who aren't worth the muck on the soles of our shoes. It's this perception that keeps the number of Hitler worshipers so low. If society took a stance of indifference towards fascists then there would soon be millions of them as they'd think 'well nobody's going to think negatively of me, so why not?'

With potential murderers it's about them weighing up whether they want to put their reputation in the eyes of their family, friends, colleagues, community and wider society at risk over what appears in this case to have been a fairly straightforward disagreement. So again, if the individual knows that people and the media are going to act with indifference or even understanding towards him/her in the aftermath of their crime, then the individual is more likely to just go ahead and do it.

Notoriety is a completely different thing altogether and is not what I'm talking about. People whole kill for notoriety don't give a damn what society thinks - they're totally nuts and sociopathic anyway. Bird however was a normal (but volatile) person, like you said.

I think the frequency of incidents such as this, where people just snap and kill, would increase if society's very negative perception of murderers didn't exist to inhibit the actions they contemplate carrying out during such episodes.



We're talking about the way in which broadcasters present the story, just like you have been the last couple of days.

LOL - summing up the story as a "man lost his temper" then!

Re: Julie - if she wasn't happy with the script, I'm sure she'd change it. Don't the ITV newsreaders largely write their own scripts anyway?

I agree it is noticeable and unnecessary - not sure I'd say it's as much of an issue for me as it is for others, but then again I'm only dipping into ITV News once a week or so at the moment. What I found more annoying on Wednesday night was all the "Coming Up" straps over reports - not necessary at all.

I'm sure there written for them and then they change them slightly - but I'm not 100%. At the end of the day if your being paid a handsome sum to read out something, you'd read out what your employers tell you to!
Unless you really was against it, you'd hardly change the whole script to your liking.

I think ITV have scriptwriters who are told what the tone of the story/stories should be. I remember reading that Mark Austin doesn't really write his own or make many changes, although I could be wrong. I think some of the other newscasters have more of a say in what goes into the script.





Yep, sounds like deep analysis of a broadcaster's actions to me.

Alastair seemed a bit iffy during the promo at 9:45. He seemed to want to face away from the camera.