Assessing the added value, ethics, and editorial judgment behind real-time television and radio coverage
Live television (and radio) reporting is never an end in itself. It is always the result of assessment by a team consisting of editor, journalist and technical team, who assess whether an event deserves so much audience attention that it requires immediate reporting as it happens, as well as to whether the live coverage is worth human and technical resources.
Journalistic stories always aim to capture audience attention about an issue/event/topic/phenomenon, and provide them with sufficient high-quality applicable information about the reported matter. How, then, to choose between telling a story in regular reporting format or live format?
Tena Perišin (2010) highlights that added value is the key concept in this context, i.e. when deciding when and why to do live coverage, one should assess what added value the audience gets from that live coverage.
What added value can a story get if accompanied not only by news report but also by live coverage? Is there an extraordinary event occurring? Has something happened during the broadcast and cannot be recorded and processed in advance? Would a journalist’s presence at a concerned location give special importance to the reported topic or enhance credibility of the television company (in the sense of “we are also on the scene!”)?
So, when deciding when to go live, the following should be assessed:
- Is the reported event sufficiently important to require live coverage?
- If the event is not particularly important, does it take place during the broadcast of a TV programme in which the event should be reported, wherefore the report/story cannot be prepared in advance?
- What additional information can the audience get with live coverage?
- Will the media company gain any special reputation with live coverage (if the event is important, will the audience appreciate having a reporter on the scene more than hearing the report from the studio)?
The events regarded as particularly relevant for live reporting are mostly those that contain elements of unpredictability or high importance. The elements of unpredictability are sudden events that can be caused by natural factors, such as various types of weather disasters, or traffic accidents caused by such disasters.
Events caused by human factors, such as armed attacks, hostage crisis, serious traffic accidents, leaks of hazardous materials, or explosions that can harm people and the environment or cause material damage, can also have the elements of unpredictability that deserve live reporting.
Of course, this does not mean that every event will be reported live. The editorial team’s assessment of the value of events is essential for the reporting process, especially when it involves live coverage, given that both material and human resources are invested in it, and that the events worthy of live reporting can often expose the reporter and the team to dangers in the field. A balance between the public interest in learning the key information about reported events and the obligation to preserve safety of the crew, is always necessary when making decisions about when and whether to go live.
Of course, there are also events that are not necessarily dramatic or risky, but meet the criteria of importance, wherefore they are assessed as relevant for live coverage. These often involve political events or topics, such as the formation or fall of a government, political or economic decisions that affect the lives of many people, bilateral and multilateral meetings of high-ranking officials, elections, and the signing of agreements, in particular peace agreements.
Nevertheless, not every such political event will be covered live. The assessment of its importance is mainly based on two criteria: whether it involves an issue that the audience has been waiting to hear for a very long time, an issue that would have significant impact on the lives of citizens; or participants of the event are exceptionally important and it is a rare opportunity to have them live in programme. Therefore, one of these two criteria determines the newsroom’s decision whether to have live coverage of an event.
Furthermore, some of the criteria relevant for determining which events would be covered live are directly related to the proximity of the event, or rather to the following three aspects:
- Physical proximity: events that do not require a long travel to the reporting location will definitely have a better chance of being reported live, the exception being high-profile events that justify the cost of team travel;
- Temporal proximity: events taking place at the same time as the programme in which they are reported, whereby it is not possible to prepare a news story about them. Instead, they could be reported live at least in the first set of news coverage;
- Emotional or rational proximity: events relatable to the audience, thus involving news that the audience expects to receive immediately.
Live coverage may also be part of specialised programmes that are broadcast live, due to their perceived importance to the public.
A few key notes about the content of live broadcast
One of the features of live reporting is the limited time available in the programme. The element of time is a great burden and limitation for a television journalist, especially in live reporting. The need to save time and reduce live coverage forces the reporter to continuously and competently assess the relevance of collected data as well as of the subject matter of the report. In live reporting, one must always keep in mind that viewers see, hear and can understand what is being said even if said only once, whereby one of the old maxims of live reporting in TV journalism is confirmed, which is that “TV journalism is something that needs to be consumed all at once”.
The task of a reporter is to convey accurate information, to credibly describe the event being reported, without making value judgments or expressing one’s own views.
In live reporting, information from multiple sources can be used, with the aim of informing the public as fully as possible. It is necessary to have official and credible sources.
Presenting unverified information from unofficial sources may further increase the existing uncertainties among the audience.
If there are different views in relation to the reported event, the reporter’s task is to convey those differences to viewers and listeners, in order to give them as complete a picture as possible.
If a reporter is unable to hear from the “other side”, it should be emphasised in the reporting, along with the reasons for not being able to present another angle of the story.
It is important to note that ethics play a particularly important role in this journalistic form:
It implies respect for and preservation of all the principles of professional reporting, which, among other things, include avoiding sensationalism, “yellow” journalism, superficiality, and vagueness.
Live reporting, therefore, is much more than just a combination of images and reporter’s statements. It is a form that requires two key skills from the reporter: the ability to prepare and the ability to adapt to the situation in which the report is made, all in order to provide the audience with complete, objective, truthful, clear and concise information from the scene.
Author: Adnan Rondic
