the
channel
|
25
broadcasting standards in other Western
European countries, particularly with the
historic enlargement of the EU about to
take place immediately after the
workshop. Croatia is already an official
applicant to join the EU in the next
round, and many of the young journalists
working in other Balkan countries look
to EU membership in their lifetimes for
peace, stability and greater prosperity. So
there was some discussion about how
they could report the complexities of the
EU more effectively, and how to find out
information and gain access to free TV
pictures. (See
Reporting Europe – Top
Tips
overleaf).
The week had begun with the delegates
outlining the difficulties they face each day
as they prepare their nightly news
programmes. It is quite a humbling
experience for tutors from well-resourced
and long-established broadcasters like the
BBC and ITV to hear about the daily
struggles to make decent news programmes,
with reporters working very long hours for
very low pay. Igor Pozgai from ATV
Banjaluka says: “We never seem to have
enough time for shooting and editing”, a
complaint echoed by another delegate from
Bosnia, Svjetlana Topalic, a reporter at the
public national broadcaster in Sarajevo. She
smiles and shrugs – “How can I make great
reports when we just don’t have enough
time?”. Amazingly in some TV stations, one
cameraman is required to shoot up to twelve
items a day, most of them press conferences,
or short interviews with officials.
Many TV stations have antiquated,
unreliable equipment, and have only a few
cameras and editing systems, adding to the
constant time pressure. Others complain
that their bosses do not really understand
television, and have been appointed simply
to serve their paymasters by making sure
there is no negative coverage of the funding
authority. It is also difficult to find out what
is happening in this region of Europe.
There is no culture of open-ness. The
police and other public services feel they
have no obligation to tell journalists what
is happening. Ordinary people are
suspicious of cameras.
But it was also clear that many problems
could be overcome by better
organisation, better management of
resources, and simply by better
journalism. For example, it became
apparent that in every newsroom
represented at the workshop, there was
an absence of editorial planning. Many
did not have a diary of future events. Very
few had regular planning meetings to
discuss coverage over the next week or
two. In successful newsrooms, the
planning desks are the engine rooms of
TV news, taking control of the news
agenda, researching potential stories,
finding good illustrations and personal
examples to show what stories are about
in human terms. And they can ensure that
camera time and editing time can be
prioritised in advance, rather than
allocated by a shouting-match every
afternoon.
