An occasional award recognising news reports and broadcast journalists who start their coverage with totally pointless ‘live crosses’ that contribute nothing to the story. Ideally the cross should also serve to confuse the viewer and will otherwise convey the same information as the pre-taped story it precedes.
Today’s award goes to TVNZ and Hannah Ockleford, who began a story on the Mumbai terror attacks with a live cross to an empty community hall somewhere in Auckland. (The hall is named after Mahatma Ghandi.)
I’ll link to the story if it comes up on the One News site.
Pretty tough competition tonight though. Whatsisname Bray in Auckland airport, where no NZers were arriving from Bangkok, was also quite pointless.
Comment by Will de Cleene — December 3, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
I am so with you on the pointless live cross. I’m waiting for the ‘live cross’ to the TVNZ cafeteria, it is going to happen.
Comment by ieuan — December 3, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
The Mahatma Ghandhi centre is about 100m up the road from Kingsland. I was stuck inside the office all day with no air con; Hannah Ockleford would have spent a good couple hours having lunch outside at Devo. Respect.
Comment by gazzaj — December 3, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
I love it when they cross to a reporter standing on the TVNZ balcony, or maybe the street below, with the wind flicking over the pages of their notepad, leaving the poor reporter tongue-tied. Just a few paces away there is a nice warm television studio, with autocue. Go figure.
Comment by sammy — December 3, 2008 @ 10:01 pm
Does Mike McRoberts get a honorary gong for travelling all the way to Afghanistan to report pretty much nothing we don’t know already?
Comment by Sam Finnemore — December 4, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
McRoberts should get the medal and bar for coming back afterwards and shiteing on about his overseas adventures endlessly in those cringe-inducing “he doesn’t just read the news; he gets it” slots that TV3 try to ruin my teatimes with…
Comment by Bearhunter — December 4, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
It did happen a couple of weeks ago on Breakfast. A Live cross about cakes.
Comment by Daniel — December 4, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
“McRoberts should get the medal and bar for coming back afterwards and shiteing on about his overseas adventures endlessly in those cringe-inducing “he doesn’t just read the news; he gets it” slots that TV3 try to ruin my teatimes with…”
Indeed. So far I’m not quite sure whether the main purpose of the Afghanistan visit is to generate reports for TV3 News, or to generate tons of on-message B-roll for CanWest’s marketing department.
Comment by Sam Finnemore — December 4, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
It would be nice if the live crosses were coming from places where the reporters were actually being shot at.
No, not like that. Here’s an Australiandoing it right
Comment by George Darroch — December 4, 2008 @ 6:43 pm