THE WRITING

Here's a message from one of our readers, ML, who is unhappy with the writing that abounds in the media.

'I would like to appeal to you to bring examples of POOR writing to the forefront of your website.
The problem is one created by Media Houses for which they are now suffering in silence.
One of the greatest stumbling blocks has been the LOW pay, great reporters were offered, forcing them to find other occupations - some far removed from the media.
What we have now are more like c
To site examples of the incompetent stock would be too humiliating to those people.

However today, I'd just like to bring to you an example of the type of poor cliched writing that abounds, after I just pulled up the Guardian's Wednesday page, shortly after midnight -
Here we have Camille Clarke writing in her first paragraph:

"THE DREAMS of a 16-year-old student to become a professional footballer came to an abrupt end yesterday, after he was stabbed to death at the Success/Laventille Composite School."

Can we get more unoriginal than that??'

So Camille, what do you have to say for yourself? We hope you are not one of the "dregs in the older stock, and a bunch of newbies who don't know left from right."
It's true the writing leaves much to be desired, but again it's the managers to blame. Reporters need to be trained, and if they are accepted without training, then the managers need to check themselves.

PLEASE CUT IT OUT!

Sharmilla Persad over at TV6, why was it necessary for you to have your editor put in that shot of you as you spoke with someone tonight?
We don't even know what the story was because we were too shocked that you were in the shot. You looked untidy and sloppy.
Steups!
Remember tv is a visual medium and that shot added nothing to your story, but seriously detracted from it.
Can you please edit out the shot for the 10pm news?

And what's wrong with the audio on Garvin Seemungal's soundbite?

TREND

Sasha Gopeesingh, oops, that should be Mohammed, over at TV6.
Why do all your stories on the UNC have three and four clips from Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh?
Hmmmmmm. Dominic Kallipersad, we think you should take a look at the root of this developing trend, eg, a story during the 7pm newscast on Saturday 23rd.

THANKS FOR LEADING WITH SPORT

Well CNC 3 has to get some kudos.
They were the only ones with enough sense to lead their Monday newscast with the arrival of the victorious 20/20 team at the Piarco airport.
Why? Because it was the most timely piece of news coming off the victory 24 hours earlier.
But.

Roger Sant, why did your director leave you on the wide shot with Odeka and Shelly while you read that loooong lead in?
And Astil Renn, did you have to go with that corny Queen song "We are the Champions" for your billboard for the cricket stories? Was that your idea?
And your opening shot should have been the team captain or manager holding the trophy or the team being applauded by fans at the arrival hall, not the chronological shot of the Miss Trinidad girl pinning a corsage on anyone!

Then Charlene Ramdhanie is back reading the 7pm news on CNMG. You've been away too long Charlene; you seemed rather stiff and formal, not conversational at all.

TV6 led their newscast with the energy story. Boring. Sorry Marcia Hope, we missed the lead in because we were still soaking in Dominic.
We saw a new graphic that a story narrated by Karen Cozier Phillip had been written by Nathalie Chrysostom. Interesting. But why didn't Nathalie voice her own story?

And still with TV6, Dominic you read a story about the Morvant taxi drivers protesting, then you went to the more laid back Matelot story voiced by Karen, then you went to another road protest in Woodland. Why didn't you just keep the protest stories together, then go to the Matelot piece to end that segment?
The overall effect was very jarring.

Did any of the news producers or assignment editors know that there's an international conference on now by the UN on falling world food supplies? Well CNC 3 knew about it. They ran a 15 second voice over on that story at 7:58pm. But earlier in the newscast, they ran a story from Otto Carrington who was interviewing the Agriculture Minister about something or other. Not a single word was mentioned in the story about the international concerns about food supply, because Otto was probably not aware of it.

Marcia Braveboy of CNC, your story on the UNC began with a close up shot of white double doors and the words "Behind these doors...".
What was the point of using that shot when the very next thing we saw was Kamla Persad-Bissessar sitting at a desk in the room that was behind the doors?
That shot and phrase would have been effective if the meeting was closed-door.

DOMINIC RETURNS!

Dominic Kallipersad, Head of News at TV6, you mean you make your company pay for a full page ad in the Express for a news anchor, then you turn around and fill the position yourself?
Steups!
We know very well that you are a veteran in the field, but come on! Your presentation in the 7pm news on Monday was stiff and cold.

OK. Samantha John had the night off and thanks for telling us.
But just in case you didn't know, you have two people right under your nose who could have filled the spot: Diane Baldeo and Bobbi Jeffrey-Hicks.
It can't be that you are giving Diane time to get used to being on tv because she is not new to the industry, and anyway she does a better job reading the news on weekends than Sammy Jo and Cherise D'Abadie did during the week.
And while Bobbi is yet to read the 7pm news at TV6, she was a face we got used to during the elections, and she also had a short-lived stint as news anchor at WIN TV, and she read the midday news on TV6 last week.

And we realize things didn't go as planned while you were reading.
The lights went out, the people meter question came in the wrong place, you didn't have a weatherman, you didn't have any weather graphics, and you said "Let's take a look at the weather in your neighbourhood today.", but you then waved your hand and said "If we had it we would have showed you."

We never, ever thought we would have to say this, but please bring back Samantha.

WHO WROTE IT?

http://newsday.co.tt/features/0,73858.html

The Newsday has printed a very well researched and well written article on the intrigue and lingering questions surrounding the murder of British socialite Gale Benson in Trinidad in January 1972.

But there's no byline and we suspect it's a reprint.
'“The details just don’t fit,” he tells me. He believes his sister had simply fallen in love, nothing more, nothing less.'
'“I remember,” her brother Frank told me this week, “the day he (Michael X) was executed.'

Can the good people at the Newsday kindly tell their readers who is the author and where the article was first published?

AFTERMATH OF BARTICA

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161283483

Andy Johnson of the Express gives an excellent account of the aftermath of the Bartica massacre in the Sunday Express.
Perhaps one of the most ironic statements was from businessman Gurudat Singh, whose businessplace was robbed of thousands of dollars of raw gold by the gun-toting bandits while he and his family huddled in an upstairs room. 'Despite it all, he said, he had no plans to leave the place he said was "one of the nicest places in the world".'

We also caught the interviews you did in Bartica on the Morning Edition Monday.

But how come we did not get a report with video from you out of Guyana for the 7pm news on TV6 on Friday?

WHAT?

Sophia Khan-Daniel of 91.1/CNMG.....who is Carlton "Bawg"?
That's how we heard you pronounce cricketer Carlton Baugh's name on your 6:30am newscast on Monday.
Get it right! Steups!

WHERE IS "DEHLI" STREET?

Hmmmmmm.
Someone in TV6's ad department needs to learn how to spell.
Where is 'Dehli' Street in St James?
And why are you telling viewers that they can "Get in shape for Carnival..." if they go to the Sure Way Clinic?
We are in the Lenten season now, in case you did not know.

YES, NO

Keisha David on TV6's Morning Edition, if you ask the little boy close-ended questions, you can only expect to get yes and no answers.