BBC WORLDSERVICE - Excuse me, can you repeat that?
Hourly Newscast (Sat., 11 a.m.) with David Laing (duration: 5 min)
This newscast covered several international news such as a gunmen attack on a checkpoint in Pakistan, talks with North Korea about its nuclear weapons program, the death of 11 UN peacekeepers in Haiti, the Lisbon treaty of the European Union, rescue works in the Philippenes after the landslides, the conviction of a Canadian financier to 13 years in prison and the first clown in space. Most of the bulletins included reports by BBC's foreign correspondents and only one story was accompanied by an actuality.
To be honest, this newscast wasn't particularly interesting. But then again, is a newscast supposed to be interesting or informative? Hence, yes. It was definitely informative - however not particularly interesting. I don't quite understand how they decided on the ranking of the newscast. However, I do understand that casualties usually come first in a newscast. But recently so many things have been going on in Pakistan. Almost every day, people die in attacks or suicide bombings. If we are talking in terms of "interestingness", then this story has become quite "boring. I would have preferred to maybe have another angle on the story, other than the one of previous attacks. In the last sentence, the reporter mentions the Taliban that are somehow connected to the attacks. This would have been something that they could have elaborated on or given additional information instead of some of the information that was offered. Also, in order to say whether this newscast was interesting, I would have to have completely understood all the information that was given. Now, this might be because I'm slow but I'm asking, could it be that BBC presenters talk unbelievably fast? In fact, I could only fully understand everything the presenter said after I went back a couple of times. But what if I was just listening to the radio and was unable to rewind? There is absolutely no way I could have understood everything.
However, the quality of sound and David Laing's voice were good. I would have loved to have more natural sounds incorporated in the bulletins. But considering the content of today's news, I have to admit that it is hard to find any natsound that would go with the stories. So, the only natsound that was used was in the story about the first clown in space and I have to admit, that this is the story that stuck most in my memory, even though it might have been the least important and the very last in the ranking.
Timewise, the newscast was exactly right. However, I would have preferred to listen to one or two stories less in the same amount of time. Eight stories in a 5 minutes newscast: How can the announcer not talk fast and leave out some important additional information? It's impossible. So, if I was the producer, I would have given the announcer less stories and therefore more time to read and include facts that might further the understanding of the listener.
No comments:
Post a Comment