Read all about it - good news (and bad)

When the Liverpool Echo published a blank front page earlier this month, it alighted upon a novel way of launching an age-old concept - the reader survey.

This eye-catching device and the accompanying social media hashtag, "TellAli" [Alastair Machray, the paper's Editor], were clearly designed to generate maximum interest.   Moreover, the highly personal tone of the appeal for views suggested that this was far from a superficial stunt.

Whether by dent of audience research or gut instinct, the paper's questions indicated that it already had an idea of where it might be going wrong - namely, its daily diet of crime stories and a broader failure to portray the city as one which has evolved beyond recognition in the last twenty years.   To its credit, the Echo has given its critics a prominent platform to air both their anticipated grievances and others which it might not have seen coming.

The issues raised have relevance both for the provincial press and all news outlets operating at a local and regional level.   The consensus seems to be that crime stories do, indeed, dominate the paper - to the extent that they have a detrimental effect on its likeability amongst locals and the impression it gives of the city to the outside world.   Potentially alienating readers is obviously of concern, but this assessment also begs the question as to whether it is the responsibility of the local press to sell its area in a positive light or simply to reflect what is happening on a daily basis.

All media with a local focus needs to present an affinity for the locality it serves and be prepared to defend it when it comes under unjustified attack.   That is part and parcel of forging a strong local identity, both to the benefit of the outlet and its audience.   Yet there is a fine line between celebrating success and serving up an anodised alternate world, divorced from reality.   

In broadcast, the geographical spread of regional television sometimes leads to the perception that an area is only visited when the worst has happened.   Whereas the community feel of local radio means it has to guard against the risk of presenting a picture of a nauseatingly perfect corner of the planet, which listeners might not necessarily recognise.

For the most part, all sectors of the local media landscape deftly navigate this tightrope, offering just the right balance of light and shade.   As for the Echo, concerns about a preponderance of crime stories overlook the fact that their presence at least means the paper is not participating in the slow death of court reporting.   Their prominence is something which might be worth reconsidering - as is the use of the gutter tabloid word "caged" instead of "jailed", which should be outlawed in the forthcoming revamp.

The other main criticism to have arisen from the #TellAli consultation relates to the paper's football coverage.   Buried beneath accusations of bias and theories regarding why neither of the city's Premier League teams is the success it might be (hint:  maybe they are just not good enough), lies a more important point.

Several respondents have bemoaned the lack of 'investigation' into the teams' financial affairs.   Such endeavours are costly to mount and, crucially, offer no guarantee of anything to show for the commitment.   Provincial newspapers - like local/regional broadcasters - sadly cannot afford to have the equivalent of The Times' Insight team sitting in the corner, generating one big story a year.   Yet it is testimony to the determination of much of the local press that the proud journalistic tradition of off-diary investigations continues.

In an age when institutions, corporations and the people who populate them are more combative than ever, such reportage is particularly fraught.   Local media are inherently reliant on the goodwill of those individuals and organisations which are potential investigative targets and to dig deeply is to run the risk of souring relations - as evidenced by the introduction of "preferred media partners" at Newcastle United press conferences and the refusal of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner's office to answer questions from a persistent reporter.

The Echo itself also has good form for attracting the ire of those in positions of power.   It doggedly pursued the story of Liverpool City Council's joint venture project with BT and Private Eye recently reported that one of the paper's journalists allegedly became persona non grata with the local authority after revelations about the purchase of the iconic Cunard building.     The problem for the Echo is the shadow cast by its now defunct sister, the Liverpool Post, which had a particularly enviable reputation for investigative work.   It was suggested that this mantle - like that of heavyweight political and business analysis - would be taken up by the Echo when the Post closed in 2013.   Unfortunately, only the current business coverage really bears comparison.

On balance, the Echo's self-flagellation and withering reader criticism (some of which has been hilarious) seem rather unwarranted.   The exercise has undoubtedly been a genuine and worthwhile one and improvements will no doubt follow, but all such interactions have the potential to engage only those who are already engaged.   The consultation was never presented as a way of stemming, at the Echo, the circulation falls which have the beset the regional press.   However, the debate did seem focused on the print product and, whilst that will always be my favoured method of consumption, the age range of those who scoff at the idea of buying a hard copy of any paper grows ever wider.

So whatever shape the 'new Echo' takes, the hope must be that it maintains and strengthens the foundations of solid local journalism which underpin it.   The role of local media is defined by contrasting duties - reporting the relevant, both positive and negative, and being a champion of the area when it is merited and a critical voice when it falls short.   It is worth acknowledging that these building blocks of local journalism remain in place at the Echo and elsewhere - in spite of the shifting sands beneath.

Competition and collectivity

Awards ceremonies.   Slightly awkward affairs where the great and good of a particular industry indulge in what is sometimes nauseating and occasionally insincere back-slapping.

Usually associated with creative professions and typified by the emetic acceptance speeches of actors lacking any semblance of self-awareness, these annual get-togethers have long since become an established part of many a career - some more worthy than others.   Teaching, healthcare, operational excellence in a health and beauty retailer (just trust me on that one).   Be it a vocation or merely an occupation, recognition and the desire for it is widespread.

It is no surprise that awards for journalism predate many of these more recent attempts to aggrandise the average or turn a calling into a red carpet career.   By its very nature, journalism is a competitive industry - the desire to expose and to be first in doing so runs deep.   That competitive edge, coupled with gallons of free-flowing booze, does not always make for the most edifying of spectacles, especially when rival print outlets are gathered in the same room.

I have no way of knowing whether broadcast journalists were any better behaved at the Royal Television Society's TV Journalism Awards last night, though I very much suspect they were.   If nothing else, any unseemly scenes involving TV's most-respected faces would be far more damaging than a bust-up between largely unknown hacks at a naval-gazing junket.    Yet this presumed good behaviour is probably also attributable to the fact that broadcast journalism largely fosters a very particular kind of competition.

It is a competition which, whilst as intense as that in any branch of the profession, appears more capable of genuinely recognising the achievements of others in the field.   Of course, all self-respecting broadcast journalists compete in the pursuit of plaudits for themselves and their employers.   In the process, however, they seem ready to acknowledge that it is the collective endeavours of the entire industry which serve to maintain and advance its reputation as a trusted and worthy source of news in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

Not for a minute does this create some kind of "after you, Sir" collusion, with journalists collaborating for a greater good - witness the wariness over the proposal even to share technical facilities for regional news across the BBC and ITV.   Yet the common standards and regulations binding broadcast journalism stand in marked contrast to a print press riven with political and, as evidenced this week, commercial considerations.   

Print journalists would no doubt rightly posit that in the cossetted world of the licence fee on the one hand and OFCOM news quotas on the other, broadcast journalism can afford its big-picture perspective.   Whilst newspaper groups delight in and increasingly instigate the travails of their rivals, television and radio news is founded on a less grudging form of shared respect.   

Of course none of this means that the nation's broadcast newsrooms are fully paid-up members of a mutual appreciation society and nor should they be.   Neither does it mean that there is not some ill-founded snobbery about the relative merits of different outlets.   But does Dispatches really seek the downfall of Panorama?   Does BBC News long for the oft-forecast disappearance of its dogged ITV rival?   It would be beyond foolish if they did.

As last night's RTS attendees reflect on their personal achievements, the winners, the runners-up and the how-the-hell-wasn't-I-nominated can take heart from the strength of the competition - both for the awards themselves and for content on a daily basis.   Without it, there would be far less worth getting dressed up for.

Up for debate?

In the United States, there was a sixteen-year hiatus between the country's first televised Presidential debate in 1960 and the second in 1976.   There were, of course, three elections in the intervening period.

The idea that a similar stalling could befall the UK's embryonic leadership debates seemed unthinkable after the perceived success of the inaugural event in 2010.      Millions tuned in to watch three debates involving the main party leaders and the programmes appeared to set the pre-election agenda in exactly the way in which they were intended.   

Yet their success in terms of audience share or even advancement of the public interest was never going to be the qualifying criteria which determined whether they would be repeated in 2015.  Party political self-interest - which had prevented decades' worth of attempts to make the debates happen - would continue to trump all else.

The narrow considerations of individual parties are complicated further by the vexed question of which leaders should be invited to take part.   In a post-coalition, post-referendum and post-UKIP scenario, that is a much tougher poser than in 2010.

Set against this political landscape, broadcasters have today put their pitch to the parties about the form of any debates in 2015 - and given a complicated backdrop, the broadcasters have come up with a complicated solution.   Gone are the three, three-way programmes to be replaced with a four-way debate which includes UKIP's Nigel Farage, a three-party event à la 2010 and a two-header involving only the Tories and Labour.

It's an interesting proposition and one which just might give each party enough of an incentive to participate.   Is it fair?   Perhaps it would be more relevant to ask - could it ever be?   

There is no appearance for the Greens, in spite of their having had an elected MP throughout this parliament, compared to UKIP's more recent election-following-defection.   UKIP did win this year's European elections, but then the Greens can argue that they have recently enjoyed a similar poll rating to the Lib Dems.   Meanwhile, the nationalists will have to make do with their space on the platform of any debates held in their own nations, having once again been denied a UK-wide outing.   The common-sense need for devolved issues (no matter how numerous these may be) to be debated within the nations concerned seems justifiable, but the Greens' absence less so.

Of course a line has to be drawn somewhere - with an eye to practicality as much as fairness.   It's also worth noting that the ultimate arbiter of what constiutes a 'major party' is OFCOM and they will almost certainly be drawn into the argument.

Unbound by such concerns will be the organisers of a proposed on-line debate, hosted by The Guardian on YouTube.   The target audience of 18-40-year-olds is purportedly more likely to engage with such a forum than a linear TV broadcast - somewhat ignoring the fact that linear TV broadcasts are themselves widely available in the on-line world.   Moreover, the rationale overlooks evidence given to a parliamentary select committee into the issue - namely, that on-line activity still fails to achieve the cut-through of mainstream media.   The benefit of the broadcast debates last time round was the very fact that it caught the attention of a mass audience - the interested, the uninterested and the disinterested.

As for the rules of engagement, it is far from certain that these will remain the same as in 2010 - the Scottish referendum debates have almost certainly seen to that.   Whilst the original leadership debates allowed the "contesting" of each participant's arguments following an audience question, free-flowing debate was understandably restricted by strict criteria governing balance.   However, the cross-examination section of the referendum debates was not necessarily any more illuminating, with one moderator judged to have lost control on occasion.

  

Negotiating a middle way - determining who speaks when and, for that matter, who speaks at all - is no small challenge.   But the fact that these debates have happened once surely means they must happen again.   Would it really be in anybody's interests (the public or the party political) for them to be sacrificed in an interminable balancing act over balance?

Never-ending stories

Broadcast news bulletins in recent weeks have been dominated by the conclusions of two long-running court stories - the outcome of the phone-hacking trial and the conviction of Rolf Harris.   

As is usually the case, programme-makers rose admirably to the challenge of distilling months of complex evidence into comprehensive packages, encapsulating the essence of events in the courtroom over the course of both trials.   Their ability to do so will have owed much to the time invested in planning for the day of the verdicts.   Yet editors will also have been preoccupied in the preceding months with judging levels of on-going coverage of the cases.

This blog has discussed elsewhere the challenge of court reporting for television and radio, but broadcasters have rarely been faced with such a range of complex and lengthy legal proceedings at any one time.   Phone-hacking, the Hillsborough inquests and a spate of celebrity sexual assault trials could easily have resulted, unchecked, in news bulletins becoming nothing more than daily court briefings.

Broadcast outlets have had to balance the usual considerations of the newsworthiness of events at a trial or inquest on any given day with the more complex calculation of the audience's tolerance for being told about it on a daily basis.   Whilst print and on-line media are safe in the knowledge that exhaustive coverage will result only in uninterested readers turning a page, broadcasters are only too aware that disengaging their audience might cause them to change the channel.

To that end, it is perhaps unsurprising that human interest appears to be an overriding factor in a case securing a slot in the running order.   Trials like that of Harris are, of course, the definition of human interest - there's the well-known face, the anticipated fall from grace and the potential for any number of startling and disturbing revelations.   

The phone-hacking trial and the Hillsborough inquests are more multi-faceted cases to relay to a broadcast audience, especially on a long-term basis.   There are complex, technical issues to be reported, explained and set in context, sometimes within the confines of reporting restrictions.   It is telling, then, that the human interest elements which do exist within these two stories have often served to propel them to the top end of the day's news bulletins.

The revelation, for instance, of Rebekah Brooks's affair with Andy Coulson was always going to generate far more broadcast coverage than the many other equally interesting days of evidence about the machinations of life at News International.   Similarly, the poignant 'pen portraits' of the Hillsborough victims, presented by their loved ones at the start of the fresh inquests, received blanket regional television coverage - it would have been impossible to cover these selectively for risk of causing understandable offence - but the more dense evidence about stadium design and matchday policing has sometimes been afforded only brief dry reads.

Of course, it would be impractical for broadcast outlets to provide comprehensive accounts of court proceedings for months at a time.   Viewers and listeners would not expect it and might eventually tire of it.   Different broadcasters with differing target audiences will offer varying degrees of depth and there are, in any case, other sources for those seeking the most detailed reportage.   Moreover, if they choose, broadcasters can always provide this heightened level of coverage on-line. 

Broadcast news has perfected an engaging and accessible style when it comes to reporting court cases, inquests and inquiries.   In fact, complex material is sometimes easier digested when presented by a skilled broadcast journalist than it is by reading an article in print.   The more technical aspects of the Hillsborough inquests which are being extensively reported by local radio - with its remit to super-serve the audience - are a case in point.   The forthcoming inquiries into alleged child abuse will provide a further test of reporting a sprawling, pseudo-legal process.   

Broadcast excels itself at the set-piece moments in legal proceedings, especially at the culmination of a case - but, perhaps, our television and radio news outlets could sometimes be that little bit braver in terms of the volume of on-going coverage which works its way into the bulletins.   Flagship daily news programmes are never going to be the medium to report the minutiae of legal proceedings.   Yet it would be a shame if broadcasters underestimated their audience's capacity for coverage of a lengthy legal tale - and their own ability to tell it.  

The news conspiracy

"What is wrong with Channel 4 News?" demands the title of a blog on the website BS News.   It's a tough question to ask of an outlet that recently retained the RTS News Programme of the Year title and is usually regarded as a bastion of original, long-form journalism.

Seemingly, it's an equally tough question to answer - the author draws her conclusions over the course of three blog posts, spanning twelve months.   Or rather she adduces evidence which she sincerely believes supports the conclusion reached in the opening paragraphs of the very first blog - namely, that the mainstream media is incapable of disentangling itself from vested interests and/or official sources and producing truly independent journalism.

The power of the argument being advanced, which focuses on the quality of foreign news reportage, hinges on whether you accept the premise that all such pieces should be 360-degree polemics that relay every conceivable contradiction about the protagonists involved.   Apart from practical considerations like limited time and the finite knowledge of even the best journalists, would such an approach be as illuminating as the blogger suggests?   An increase in standalone, off-diary reports on foreign affairs might be a better remedy than trying to explore tangential global complexities in each and every package from the world's troublespots.

Yet it's doubtful that contributors to Bullshit News, to give it its full title, would be swayed by any proposed solution to the inadequacies they identify in the "mainstream media" (imagine that phrase spat out with contempt, because I have a feeling that's how it is written).   For them, like so many other corners of the internet, the mainstream is all that's malign.

The author of the Channel 4 News critique doesn't even grant these seasoned ITN journos the status of conspirators with the vested interests they should be challenging - instead, they are dismissed as being "conditioned" to the point where they cannot even recognise their own shortcomings in holding the powerful to account.   To suggest that the likes of Paul Mason (who has turned looking askance into an art form) and the rest of his profession are in thrall to some global elite seriously undermines the case.   It also seems curious to alight upon a broadcaster which has a strong investigative history (both at home and abroad) and which, only this week, broadcast a host of new angles from the Syrian conflict, at a time when it could easily be dismissed as a story in stalemate.

Yet BS News is far from a lone voice in the on-line wilderness.   Visit a media messageboard or enter a Twitter hashtag for any of our broadcast news or current affairs programmes and it's not long before a stream of critical armchair analysis unfolds.   The BBC, unsurprisingly, is berated for supposed bias at both ends of the political spectrum (as here and here), while the editors of various programmes are accused of allowing their reporters to misrepresent the facts of any given story.   Maybe when journalists find that they are annoying everybody, they are pretty close to doing their job properly.

In years long since past, the most a broadcast journalist had to worry about was an official complaint to the regulator or a critical review in the print press.   Nowadays, their work is subject to a cacophony of comment with which different reporters and editors will engage to varying degrees.   That can only be good for the sum of human knowledge and journalists should never be allowed to occupy some higher plain where they go unchallenged.   Moreover, the growth in fact-checking, both from within and independent of traditional media, has been a great leveller in holding journalists themselves to account.    

Sometimes viewers or listeners with particular knowledge will be able to add facts and perspective to a story, as was the case with this blog, which put a more nuanced spin on BBC coverage of an exodus of train carriages from the North to the South.   Still, the author couldn't resist having a pop at "headless chicken" journalists in the process.   

Whatever the on-line world makes of the mainstream, it's fanciful to suggest that broadcast journalism is populated with those who are too blind, too lazy or too conditioned to pursue the real stories.   Be it professional pride, egotism, or a combination of the two, the majority of broadcast journalists thrive on the age-old thrill of the scoop.

The profession is far from perfect;  time pressures and human fallibility mean there will always be examples of poor journalism or instances where the industry falls short of the high standards it sets itself and mistakes are made.   But acknowledging these weaknesses does not mean acquiescing to the view that broadcast journalists are living in a lemming-like stupor or engaged in a grand conspiracy.

The potential for an on-line commentariat to improve and complement (if never compliment) traditional media output is a journalistic fact of life in the digital age.   However, its insistent, insidious undermining of the mainstream just for being mainstream often drowns out anything worthwhile which it has to say.  

Liverpool's last Post

Less than two years after it morphed into a weekly paper, the presses have stopped rolling on what was the Liverpool Daily Post for the vast majority of its 158-year history.

The migration from daily to weekly publication has become a trend in some sections of a struggling provincial press in recent years.   Yet while several titles have flourished under this new model, increasing their circulations compared to the latter days of their daily incarnations, the Liverpool Post faced a bigger challenge than some - and it came from within the same building.

With its sister publication, the Liverpool Echo, selling ten times as many print copies, the clock was always ticking for the Post.   To its great credit, the relaunched paper tried to offer something distinctive and adopted a more investigative approach, often leading with an exclusive on some aspect of public life in the city.   Unfortunately, these scoops, combined with detailed analysis and specialist business and arts coverage, failed to excite the dwindling newspaper-buying public of Merseyside (declaration:  I bought the Post more often as a weekly than a daily, but still only if the lead story caught my eye).

The good news is that the closure isn't resulting in journalistic job losses.   The bad news is laid bare by that same fact - this isn't about naked cost-cutting, it's purely due to lack of demand.   Broadsheet-minded print titles appear fated to struggle at a local or regional level in times of falling circulations, as evidenced by the demise of the brilliant, but short-lived North West Enquirer in the mid-2000s.  

Two years after the Post went weekly, there is still no answer to the question posed by this blog at the time - is there a new generation which simply doesn't care for what might be termed big-picture local news?   Moreover, is the appetite for all forms of local news falling in proportion with collapsing readerships?   

Website traffic for the local and regional press is, unsurprisingly, on the rise.   However, whilst it might be reassuring to suggest an inversely proportional relationship between the two, on-line hits don't always equate to the fully-rounded experience of reading a print copy.   Although every reader won't read every story in print, the process of flicking from cover-to-cover increases the likelihood of encountering journalism which the individual might never make the necessarily active choice to access on on-line.   Factor in links to suggestions for similar stories and it's easy to see why even regular website visitors could end up with a rather narrowly-focused diet of local news.   

The Liverpool Echo has promised to absorb both the staff and the substance from its sister publication and, although it has shed tens of thousands of its own readers in the last decade, the paper's circulation appears remarkably healthy when compared with others serving similar-sized urban areas.   And that has to be welcomed, because the need for local news - whatever the commercial realities - hasn't diminished in the digital age.   

The local press is a vital component of journalism's ecosystem.   Whatever those of us in broadcast might like to think about our ability to originate, there's many a local radio station and regional television newsroom that would notice the difference if they started each day without local papers as a reliable reference point.

So Liverpool is unable to sustain two daily papers in 2014 - hardly news worthy of holding the front page.   A sad change, certainly, but not seismic - yet.   That tag can be reserved for if the day ever comes when it can't sustain even one.

Making the news

It's a game we've all played at one time or another - fantasy TV news running order.   Just me?  I doubt it.   There aren't many households where someone hasn't openly berated the faceless executive who decided this story or that should lead the bulletin - or even have a place in it at all.   Not to mention questioning why that piece you half-heard on the radio during the day - and of which you would quite like the full story - has been afforded only the briefest of mentions on the evening news.  

Well it seems that after a hard day's work, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham arrived home on Sunday evening and ended up playing a spin-off version of this innocent family favourite - fantasy TV news running order:  deluxe.   This version proceeds in exactly the same way as the original, with one notable exception.    While the mild opprobrium inherent in the game usually limits itself to some channel hopping or a tossed remote control, the deluxe version takes things to the next level - a letter of complaint.

Or, to be precise, in this particular instance, a letter of concern.   For Mr. Burnham has stopped short of making a formal complaint about what he described as the BBC's "cursory" coverage of a protest march condemning health service cuts and the backdoor privatisation of the NHS. 

The lead story on both of BBC1's main news bulletins on Sunday was the opening day of the Tory party conference in Manchester and the bringing forward of the government's help-to-buy scheme.   An estimated 50,000 people gathered for the anti-cuts rally just outside the venue.  In wrapping up the day's events, the BBC linked all three aspects of this political story in one package at the top of the programme.

This was all perfectly sensible and editorially justifiable.   Andy Burnham's complaint, though, was that the presentation of the piece relegated the aspect with which he was most concerned to a side issue.   The report did contain some general shots of the protestors and the correspondent gave a brief overview of the reason for the march and the numbers involved.   There was, however, no contribution from any of the individuals in attendance who might have put their point more forcefully.

If this hadn't been a short Sunday evening bulletin, there is every likelihood that the protest would have been picked up in a related, second package in the running order.   As it happens, there was indeed such a follow-up package - unfortunately for Burnham and the protestors, it was an explanatory piece about help-to-buy, not NHS cuts.   And given the time constraints, there was no prospect of a third report on the same overarching political story.

So does the Shadow Health Secretary have a point?   Let's try to apply some oft-maligned BBC balance to the issue.  On the one hand, it was perhaps surprising that a march of that magnitude didn't even merit a vox-pop with those involved.   Such a contribution might not have significantly furthered the story, but potentially could have been slightly more illuminating for the passive viewer.

On the other, could any brief clip of a protestor's comments really have added much to public understanding of the issue?   There surely comes a point in stories which have a thread lasting several years (like this one) when some cumulative knowledge has to be assumed.   This is particularly true in daily news programmes when time is tight.   Occasionally, the most basic definition of news - reporting that which is new - has to be applied.   In this instance, the march was the story;  the reasons for it had been heard many times before and there wasn't time to repeat them, preferable though that might have been.

Perhaps an argument could be advanced that the specific issue of health service cutbacks has come second in broadcast coverage to similar changes in the benefits system.   As discussed here, that might have more to do with the ease of crafting effective human interest reports out of benefit stories as opposed to the more amorphous structural issues often associated with the NHS.

Ultimately, though, it is difficult to argue that broadcast reporting of health service challenges and reforms has been anything other than comprehensive.   Those who really want the finer details might have to look further than daily TV news programmes and consult more specialist, long-form output - or even just their regional counterparts which are past masters at incisively highlighting wider issues with case studies close to home.   Yet whilst acknowledging that half-hour bulletins can never be a televised version of Private Eye (now there's an idea), it seems to me that broadcast news has got the balance just about right.

Sometimes the news agenda isn't exactly how we might fashion it if we were the ones in sole charge.   Stories are always jostling for position and agreement about what makes the cut and what doesn't is never universal - least of all amongst reporters themselves.   Politicians, meanwhile, already have far greater influence over what hits the headlines than most other groups in society, so can they really complain when the news agenda doesn't match their own? 

        

While Andy Burnham's point about this particular example of reportage is a legitimate one and he is right to raise it with the BBC Trust if he feels strongly enough, I am glad that he has resisted the temptation to make a formal complaint.    It would have cast an unnecessary shadow over the insightful work done by newsrooms across the industry to bring to life these complex subjects for the widest possible audience - in other words, broadcast news at its best.  

The future starts here

Since its inception, this blog has keenly charted the tortuous issue of the future of regional news on ITV.  In recent years, the only thing certain about that future was the fear that there might not be one.   

Successive management regimes made increasingly gloomy predictions about the ability of the channel to continue to provide one of its founding, core services.   Champions of plurality and competition in regional news watched in dismay as ITV's regions became larger and its staff fewer.  

Alternative propositions - like independently-financed news consortia and sharing resources with the BBC - came and went, finally to be trumped by former Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's great white hope/elephant (delete as appropriate), the soon-to-be-launched local TV.   Whatever the future looked like and in spite of the exceptional output still being created by those working in its newsrooms, ITV seemed to be inching closer to the regional exit.

Yet despite this relentlessly bleak narrative, last week saw the start of a series of changes designed to create a sustainable and enhanced regional news service for the digital age.   The sprawling super-regions created back in 2009 have made way for the regional and sub-regional coverage that viewers previously knew.   This more targeted output does, however, come at a price - the flagship 6.00p.m. programmes, whilst still 30 minutes in duration, can now include 10 minutes of 'out-of-area' material drawn from other regions entirely.

When mooted by ITV eighteen months ago, it seemed a perplexing prospect.   This shared material would, according to the channel, have "relevance, resonance and application" across more than one region.   Yet within the constraints of a regional programme, it would be a daily challenge to ensure it was logically and seamlessly incorporated.   Surely all but the most unsavvy of viewers would query the sudden presence of stories from outside even their pan-region;  alternatively, if the geography were stripped from a story completely, the result could easily be an issue-led package more suited to the national bulletin.

ITV has, however, tested the model and is convinced it can be made to work.   Although clearly a trade-off for the return of the sub-regions, the out-of-area quota is no mean undertaking in itself and will require deft editorial handling and delicate linkage so as to create a rounded programme in each region.

Of course, the occasional dual-region story has long been a feature of the output.   Granada and ITV West both recently broadcast the story of a woman from Weston-super-Mare who had unearthed memorabilia of the Beatles, a group which - hey presto! - emanated from Granadaland.   Such a gift of a shared story won't come along every day, but if the out-of-area strands are well-woven into the programmes (as ITV obviously intends them to be) and it sustains their increased sub-regional commitments elsewhere, then it could prove an inspired, if unlikely, innovation.

The '20+10' rule will not apply to all the English regions after OFCOM uncharacteristically refused to sanction it in the North West and London.   As regions without any sub-opt-outs, ITV was unable to argue that it was a quid pro quo for more localised coverage.   Instead they pointed to the fact that local TV would be strong in these areas and so viewers would still be well catered for.   This was a shame as it didn't chime with their more positive vision for the other regions and it was ultimately rejected by the regulator.   Meanwhile, the sparsely populated Border region has been rewarded for its continued love affair with regional news (whose viewing share in this area reads like a BARB statistic from 25 years ago) with the generous reinstatement of a full 30-minute Lookaround and a weekly political programme to improve political coverage for those in southern Scotland.

Super-serving the regions after digital switchover?   That was a prospect which even the most optimistic flag-wavers for the ITV service (myself amongst them) failed to forecast.   And at a time when many feared screens would metaphorically be going blank, there's finally some good news about regional news.

Making public policy paletable

In the week that the welfare system receives a controversial overhaul, it's worth remembering that putting public policy under the microscope should be the bread and butter of current affairs programming.   That sounds like a statement of the obvious, but it is one of the most difficult aspects of the genre to execute effectively.

Public policy is often the basis of a programme or extended feature, but the policy itself can easily be overwhelmed either by politics or the human interest angle justifiably used to illustrate the issue.   Producing a meaningful piece of broadcast journalism on the subject also depends on the nature of the policy and the timing of the programme.   The more a policy can be shown to have a direct impact on the lives of the audience, the easier it is to produce and the more likely it is to be commissioned.   This criteria is often satisfied only once a policy has been implemented and case studies of people affected start to emerge.

The welfare changes are a prime example of the first rule and the exception that proves the second.   The policy has the potential to directly - and adversely - affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.   Its relevance to the audience cannot be in any doubt.   And, unlike many policy issues, it was easily covered in advance of its official arrival - would-be victims of its effects fell like manna from heaven for journalists.   All of which probably accounts for why this story has enjoyed such comprehensive coverage - from local radio all the way up to peak-time television documentaries - ever since it was announced.

Other policy issues are far less generous in providing a template for the perfect piece of broadcast journalism.   More often than not, public policy deals with things that seem relevant only to Whitehall wonks - like amorphous concepts of structure and governance.    For a tiny minority of the audience, that's really rather interesting (as somebody who has just produced a documentary on academies - just for the fun of it - I'll let you decide which category I fall into), but most broadcasters would have a justifiable fear that programmes on such subjects might record the dreaded zero in audience measurement data.

Yet it is a marker of the quality and range of current affairs broadcasting in the UK, that these programmes do get made.   The reforms to the NHS, which also begin this week, are arguably as far-reaching as those to the benefit system - but are a wholly different beast to present to an audience.   So little about them is tangible and reporters would be searching for a long time to find even a fragment of human interest.   However, it remains a matter of huge public interest (whether the public are actively interested in it or not) and so broadcast news and current affairs has a duty to report and investigate - one which it has discharged admirably across radio and television. 

Such policy issues are even less appealing to journalists in advance of their implementation.   However, it is at the policy formulation stage when programmes highlighting potential changes are most valuable.   It is at this point - perhaps when matters are open to public consultation - that programmes can help inform and even initiate debate.   Usually, the policy and its potential effects will not be as inextricably linked as was the case with welfare reform - so making the journalist's job all the harder, but even more important.

Public policy programming always needs to walk a fine line.   One that demonstrates potential for impact and how policies relate to everyday life, but which isn't afraid of hard analysis and subjects not tailor-made for TV or radio.     

Drawing the line between local and regional

The news that STV - the operator of Scotland's two Channel 3 licences - has won the local licences for Edinburgh and Glasgow is another interesting twist in the embryonic story of local TV.

At first glance, it appeared a strange notion for the regional, heritage broadcaster to be setting up in seeming competition with itself.   If its local offering were to prove 'too good', then the regional ratings would surely suffer.   A quality localised service (of the kind an established broadcaster like STV is surely capable) could tempt viewers to rethink their attachment to a wider region and become as alligned with the idea of local news in vision as they are with it in print.

Even more curious is the fact that STV already has one of the most localised services on the ITV network, with separate programmes for North, West and East Scotland and further sub-regional opt-outs within them.   As this blog has mused elsewhere, viewers seem to respond well to the regional so long as it is relevant - a feat STV has apparently achieved.   Direct competition from well-resourced local TV might result in a fight to the death - of either one service or the other.

Yet the channel says it can create local TV stations which can "complement" the established output.   And there are undoubtedly benefits to the idea of having an interest in both regional and local services.   Clearly, there is massive potential for cross-promotion.   News-in-brief items that would never make full packages on a regional programme could be highlighted as being covered in more detail on the local channel, for those interested in finding out more.   One of the biggest challenges facing local TV is generating an awareness amongst its potential audience.   The other big challenge - financial stability - will be partly addressed by economies of scale and use of shared facilities, which ultimately might prove the difference between viability and failure.

The heavy involvement of the broadcast journalism courses at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities not only provides an enviable training ground for students, but also ensures that the local services will look somewhat different to their regional counterparts.   That is not to belittle student efforts in producing high quality output (as one who has sweated blood over in-house university news programmes), but the local stations will necessarily be offering a different style of journalism - and could even flourish for it.

Scheduling will be a trickier issue to resolve.   The local stations are tied to broadcasting news and current affairs output at peak time, inevitably prompting a clash with the flagship regional programmes at some point.   Yet even this shouldn't prove an insurmountable problem.

Perhaps the biggest benefit to the channel of being involved at both the regional and local level is also the most obvious one - whatever choice viewers make, there is every chance they will still be choosing STV.