Monday, December 31, 2007

HOW MANY STORIES?

Karen of TV6, your single story on Eric Williams at 7pm spawned into three stories for the 10pm newscast.

The first was an outline of the judgement and Mr Williams' initial reaction (you interviewed him at his home).
Then we had a looong recap of the history of the case from Sasha Mohammed, which overshadowed your lead story.
Then finally we had another piece from you with Mr Williams' mother recounting her experience throughout the case (she was sitting right next to her son during his interview).
So whose idea was it to go to all those lengths? We can understand the initial reaction and the history of the case, but why couldn't his mother's reactions been woven into your initial story?
At least the 10pm lead story came to us MINUS all those red, white and blue graphics which were so distracting and unnecessary at 7pm.

In Sasha's epic, there were some discrepancies in the script and video. She said Mr Williams' mother accompanied him to every court appearance, yet we saw them both sitting on their verandah. Where were the file shots of them going to court?
Then she said he was relegated to the back benches of parliament and he did not make any contributions, yet we saw a long shot of him (talking head) standing and making a contribution in the parliament. You need to write to your pictures.

And finally Sharmilla Persad, burglaries was still spelled wrong at 10pm in your story on crime statistics, and the graphics were still too small and too many.