Hot news, cold reporting

Published on October 6, 2007

The suspicion springs up whenever I talk to a teenager. It seems they don't read newspapers, watch TV news programmes or subscribe to any mobile phone SMS news service.

I have two questions for them. What if something happens and they want details of it? And where would they turn for such news?

Naturally, people would turn to TV sets - while SMS news services are used to alert them of an incident. More details are provided through radio news programmes. Still, they fail to provide photos of the scenes. Meanwhile, we have to wait for tomorrow's papers to know what happens today and for the day after's to learn about people's response. The best available source then is TV, due to its immediacy.

At least, in theory. As a journalist, I'm often disappointed by the speed of news coverage on TV news programmes.

With any incident like the September's plane crash, I expect all channels to come up with breaking news and eye-witness accounts.

But that didn't happen.

The crash in Phuket was the biggest disaster to date in Thailand's aviation industry - worse even than the crash in Surat Thani almost nine years ago. The accident happened at about 4.30pm; ModerNine reported it on its 5pm news programme through a phone-in. And that was it. A whole hour passed before the channel picked up the report again, on its next hourly news programme.

Most people were first alerted to the news by a mobile-phone news service.

This speediness in reporting wasn't surprising - how long can it take for a reporter to phone in to the news centre, type in the message and push the "Send" button? The news was confirmed by a report on the radio at about 6pm. It was then that I got wind of it and turned on the television set.

Channel 7 reported on the crash, but the news programme failed to provide the detailed information that I was thirsting for. It got Udom Tantiprasongchai, CEO of the airline, on the telephone. Unfortunately, the anchor may have been overexcited, because she kept asking whether he knew what caused the accident and how he felt about the tragedy. Of course, what else could Udom say but express his regrets for the victims. The anchor also forgot to ask how much the plane was insured for and by which insurance company. She kept asking whether Udom saw the disaster scene on Channel 7.

It was so disappointing at the time that my favourite station, TITV, failed to bring the scene to the television screen until 7pm. More assuring was that TITV offered me most of the facts I needed, but they should have come a lot earlier than 7pm.

And it happened again last week when a bomb exploded in Bangkok. ModerNine was airing its early news programme, while TITV was giving a sports report: neither were interrupted to bring us the breaking news. The incident, with pictures from the scene and interviews, only reached our screens after all the pre-prepared news had been reported.

Hmm, it looks like we could be waiting a long, long time before we get the speedy news delivery needed.

Comments can be sent to e_nang30@yahoo.com.