ITN News - Destroyed by ITV.

By Garry Cook

I read a blog recently berating the dumbness of ITV News. This was a revelation to me on two counts. It was the first time I’ve read a myspace blog that was not all ‘me, me, me, me, me’. And it was also the first time I’ve read a myspace blog which actually argued sense.

ITV News is rubbish. It was a thought I had been harbouring for a while.

The dumbness of dumbned down ITV News, or ITV Network News as it is known now, or ITN as it once was once known, is something that I have watched with increasing unease over the last two years.

I have always preferred ITV news over the esteemed BBC. I found the BBC’s news broadcasts dull and overly staid. The British Broadcasting Corporation could always make even the most exciting story seem lifeless, like a Radio 4 news bulletin.

In fact, I would never watch the BBC. I’d always waiting for ITV’s news. To me, ITV always hit the right note as far as dramatic presentation was concerned.

Sadly, that feeling has gone.

It’s not been around for a while.

Watching ITV News over the past two years has become increasingly difficult.

There have been one or two decent moments. Mark Austin’s week-long stint in China was the most recent. The same reporter anchoring the news in Kuwait/Iraq also ticked the right boxes. But on the whole it’s been one long slide down to banality.

Somewhere along the line ITN bosses decided celebrity was the way forward. Serious news has been replaced by the sensationalist chronicling of the lives of celebrities. The most trivial stories given unwarranted airtime – sometimes (appallingly) at the top of the show.

And most of these ‘news’ items are hijacked from the British (tabloid) newspapers with little or no additional reporting.

Nine times out of ten overseas news now comes packaged from a reporter at ITN’s HQ on the Grey’s Inn Road. Cheap, cheap cheap.

I also started to notice how serious news stories were increasingly given little or no coverage. Some months ago I was beginning to feel short-changed.

The final straw was the blatant Americanisation of the introductions at the top of the show. Tabloid headlines followed by questions by the presenters (questions which are rarely answered in the reports).

Everything at ITN is hyped to kingdom come with no substance.

Presenting: Mark Austin excellent, Katie Derham excellent. Correspondents: John Irvine excellent, James Mates excellent, Billy Neely excellent. ITN’s production values: total crap.

What must these reporters be thinking? What must they whisper to each other down The Griffin or round the other bars in Farringdon after work?

For me personally, watching this drivel, drastic action was needed. As a viewer, this can mean only one thing. I changed channels.

What I found was a revelation.

I don’t know if it was the BBC getting better, or just the contrast against an appalling ITN, but I actually enjoyed what I was watching.

Watching BBC news made me feel informed. Serious issues covered, especially politically and internationally. I began to feel like I was in the know.

And, on future technology and consumer affairs, the BBC came across like an authority rather than the Chris Choi half-day cobbled together reactionary piece from a Which? report that ITN news is.

The BBC is bringing genuinely new news stories to the screen. It is covering real events, really well. It makes you believe that there are still standards in journalism.

And if you can put aside Natasha Kaplinsky’s dancing and addiction to men, and the fact that Kate Silverton used to appear on The Wright Stuff and once posed in just her bra for that show, what you’ve got is decent news production values.

I see David Mannion’s name at the end of the credits of ITV News. Editor in Chief, I believe he is. Or is it Deborah Turness’ fault? She’s the editor of ITV Network News. You two can fight among yourselves over who takes the glory for destroying ITN.

All I know is that one of these two – if not both – need to stop watching American news stations and have the balls to stand up for hard news values (Note: Tonight with Trevor McDonald is not hard news, it’s not even good news, it’s magazine-style bollocks).

ITN continue to follow the low-brow celebrity coverage in a CNN-style – without the depth – I can see it being dropped to ITV2, to be replaced with a twice-weekly Enterta!nment! show presented by Jenni Falconer and Ben Shepherd.

And that would be the worst insult of all. ITN news, the once great institution, unflatteringly compared to GMTV.

God help the buggers.