TV News Reporters ...

TV News has certainly changed over the years. Gone are the dinner jacket and the evening frock as the newscasters in BBC clipped English announced, "Good evening. Here is the news." Death, disaster, Royal visits, unseasonal weather, news from the Commonwealth, all delivered in the same matter-of-fact manner. What style, what elan!

Cut to today and suddenly everybody has to read the news standing up. Not sure how this has come about. Is it some new health and safety measure? Cut down the risk of piles, or deep vein thrombosis. The studio has to be high tech, and mostly computer generated, with displays and reports on huge screens. Then there are the TV reporters.

Why do they feel they have to nod their head and wait an eternity before starting their report. You can understand it with a dodgy video phone/satellite link from some obscure part of the world, but not from just down the road. This is the latest quirky habit which crops up from time to time. Another recent one was the use of the word "absolutely" in every other sentence.

But it's not just reporting the news; they have to add drama to the proceedings and if there is the option of shouting their report then they jump at it. If they are at an airport, rather than picking a quiet place to report from they much prefer to be right up a Boeing's exhaust, because it's dramatic, and they're at the centre of the drama.

TV reporters, we salute you.

Q: How many TV news reporters does it take to change a lightbulb?
A:
NATASHA: To answer that let's cross to our reporter Tim Gurning who is embedded with the Royal Marines in Afganistan. Tim.

TIM: (CROUCHING BEHIND A WALL, AMONGST A GROUP OF MARINES, SHOUTING TO BE HEARD ) ( STILL TIME TO PAUSE, NOD THE HEAD ) Natasha, we received intelligence about two hours ago that the house just across the street was a Taliban meeting place, and that there was a dead lightbulb inside. Backed up by attack helicopters, which as you can hear are hovering just above us, these Marines are about to move in.

SHOUTS FROM THE MARINES AND WE'RE ON THE MOVE. UNSTEADY CAMERA AS WE HEAD FOR A DOORWAY.

TIM: And here we go. No-one is quite sure what to expect.

DOORS KICKED DOWN, THE PROPERTY IS EMPTY APART FROM A FEW FRIGHTENED WOMEN AND CHILDREN HUDDLED IN ONE CORNER.

TIM: So it would appear that any Taliban fighters have long since departed. Just these few startled women and children remain. But, we have found the lightbulb.

CLOSE UP OF BARE LIGHTBULB HANGING FROM CEILING.

TIM: We need to ascertain that it is in fact dead, but no-one will touch it until the Royal Engineers get here, just in case it's booby trapped. Back to you, Natasha.

NATASHA: Tim. And you can see more of Tim Gurning's report from Afganistan, including the changing of the lightbulb, in Newsnight tonight.