News, but not as we knew it

Nine's flagship 6pm news bulletin - once a proud and unchallenged leader - is now testing out overseas formats in an effort to revive its flagging fortunes.

Tonight's lead story covered the effect of the Reserve Bank Board's decision to lift interest rates by a quarter of a per cent. Instead of a packaged tape story comprising interview grabs and voiceover behind relevant overlay footage, we had reporter Wayne Dyer standing in the studio, delivering the entire report directly to camera, save for the soundbites of interviewees.

It's a technique borrowed from British news bulletins. But it's a retrograde step. Leave aside for the moment the question of whether a reporter such as Dyer should be allocated such an important story. The format - where the reporter is in a controlled and sterile environment - means the background of the shot can be devoted to graphics, such as charts, figures and tables. But these were partly obscured by Dyer in the foreground.

As well, it removes the reporter from where he is supposed to be - in the field, on the road, gathering the news, talking to the people who matter. Dyer's script may as well have been cut & pasted direct from wire copy written by someone else (and probably was, at least in part). He never had to leave the comfort of the newsroom.

But most of all, the story becomes the reporter, and the reporter becomes the story. No relevant shots of houses, suburbs, construction, families, or banks. It looks cheap - probably because it is. The field camera crew and tape editor who otherwise would have been deployed to produce Dyer's story could be used elsewhere. The studio crew and control room facilities usually idle until late afternoon could be pressed into service.

It's a business model that pleases the accountants. But it's one that shaves another slice from the substance of good television journalism.