Pointless OBs

That works only if you assume that other journalists are actually gathering the news for the studio-bound person to sift and collate. If you actually want to newsgather - then you still have to send your journalists to where events happen. Asking questions that generate new answers is a large part of what journalism is - not reading agency copy (that contains the answers to questions others have asked) out on camera.

If everyone stays in the studio - how do you know what is happening outside the studio?

The key thing is to send ENOUGH people to locations - just sending a single reporter (which will increasingly be the case) and tying them to a camera isn't enough. You need to have enough journalists (both producers and reporters) to actually do some original journalism - which doesn't happen in West London...

The best location reporting happens when the reporter on the ground has time to talk to the key players involved in the story, form relationships of trust with them, and get real information.

Sending a gob-on-a-stick to parrot what is said in their ear from London is what has to be avoided - but not sending people doesn't solve this.

This guy's real, isn't he?

On a television presentation forum and asking what an OB is!

I'd honestly never come across the term before, despite being on a television presentation forum.

A Journalists' job is to write copy for media, in whatever format and from wherever they happen to be. BBC News have demonstrated this in one of their latest TOTH trailers. (click, click, click......)

Yes, I like a videophone (broken-up digitised image) from Islamabad because it's live and there are no other broadcast systems - that's technology. CNN cut their teeth on similar from Baghdad in 1990, with lesser tech.

The rest seems feeble. I don't need an OB from outside the studio. It's pointless, rather silly, and makes assumes the viewers are idiots - which they aren't (well, some!)

OB stands for 'outside broadcast' (i.e. outside of the studio).

I have a real bugbear with these live two-ways and always have. I do not mind journalists being sent out to the scene (and as noggin said, enough of them). What I have a problem with is how they have to give a live two-way "chat" with the studio presenter. Why can't they just go to the scene, dig up the details, edit it into a proper report and send it to London? That gets played on the news and they move on. Why does everything have to be live all the time? Apart from anything else, live telly is risky, especially when out and about with the general public. You don't know what a person is going to say and how embarrassing/cringeworthy it may be. Surely a taped report would help to avoid this problem. Live's also lead to embarrassing cock-ups when feeds go down or the correspondent's earpiece slips etc.

I say leave the live discussions to guests and have the correspondents file more reports. The correspondent should only do a live two-way if there has been a major development since the report was recorded, but this should be kept to a minimum.

I have to say that there is NO need for a presenter to be on location. Nothing is newsworthy enough to warrant that. It never used to happen ten years ago, so why does it have to happen now? As soon as I saw Mark Austin on location tonight, I switched over. I knew that they'd get their money's worth out of him being on location and the bulletin would be heavily biased towards that story rather than the others, so I couldn't be bothered watching.

So what ? Reporting from the door step of Jill Dando's house adds nothing to the viewers' understanding of the story. There's already hours of footage of the front door from 8 years ago, it hasn't exactly changed has it ? Have you actually considered the neighbours, and whoever owns the house now ? I'm sure they don't want the media circus camped out in their road once more, they'll be just trying to forget and move on from the tragic event. This is a prime example of the media being more of a menace, than any help.

It doesn't cost all that much to do an OB as the crew will be working nevertheless and as said before the News Editor just books a satelite slot.

And I don't see the problem - it's much easier than preparing a report before stories change very quickly and if you're able to the report the FACTS of the current moment then I'm sure that's better. You also get more to the centre of the news story if you've got live pictures from where the "story" is from.

But should the broadcasters be doing what is easiest? Shouldn't they be doing what looks more professional? I know I'd rather have a nicely edited, rehearsed report than a correspondent stood outside the MOD being blown around, clutching his/her papers and fluffing lines. For me, a proper report which has had time invested in it communicates the facts much more effectively.

It isn't about what is easiest or most professional these days - it is about what is cheapest.

Both BBC News and ITV News have diminishing budgets - quality packaging is expensive, floating roughly cut pictures over a live reporter is cheaper... No picture editor required, only a small amount of producer time required to put in the graphics details, hack together a few shots on their desktop editing system, and move on to the next item. No need to send another reporter to package whilst one does lives, base producer can do more than one item in the show, sat truck already paid for, sat space already leased, so as long as you don't push crew into overtime, it costs very little.

In days gone by each report on a network bulletin would have its own producer - who would source pictures, work on structure with the reporter and editor, and see the item from source to screen. Those days are LONG gone.

The truth is more and more lives and interviews are going to appear in network bulletins for the simple reason that they are cheaper. Edited reports will be less frequent, and are less likely to be updated between bulletins.

When you have to make savings of the amount the BBC and ITV News have had to make over the last 5 years, and over the next 5 years, you can't afford to produce a bulletin full of crafted packages.

As for lack of rehearsal of lives - most network bulletins - particularly those later in the day - will arrange for the reporter in the field and the presenter to talk through their live on the phone before they do it, agree questions etc.

There is a big difference between a 1'00-2'00 structured interview on the Six or the Ten O'Clock News and the unbriefed, long-winded, "we haven't got anything else more interesting to go to, so keep this going" style of interview you get on 24 hour channels. Of course this does mean that when the bulletins do an interview that hasn't been fully produced or talked through - it does tend to stick out a bit...

To be fair, the term 'OB' isn't really used in news for these sort of reports - they're normally called 'lives' as in 'live two-way'

'OB' is used for more complicated broadcasts, i.e. when a whole TV or radio programme comes from an outside location - think something like City Hospital

There's a difference between a OB from the scene of an incident and an OB from outside the MOD at 10 o'clock at night because somethings happened in Iraq, or being outside an office were 10 hours earlier a pres release was issued, or BBC News being live outside TV Centre when they're in the news themselves. I don't see how these can be justified in the cost cutting enviornment when all the facts will be coming from the newsroom to the reporter.

The point about live braodcasts is interesting, there's always a 3' delay approx after the question has been asked and a response is received. It's very tedious.

I remember hearing a while back that advanced journalists add a couple of seconds of redundant text not necessary to understand what tehy are saying, and provide some signal to the other party (such as tapping their face) to indicate that they can start their response based on the information transferred so far. It's a great idea, but I've never actually seen it in practice.