NEWS CRITIQUE

NEWS CRITIQUE

KTN PRIME TIME NEWS

The KTN staff is quite presentable and is eloquent in their mode of presentation. However, I noticed that there are specific news presenters who often do the 9:00 news; Mrs. Beatrice Marshall and Mr. Njoroge Mwaura. This I find to be limiting to the rest of the staff members who may perhaps want to do great in television presentation.

At first I had had a problem with the lighting of the studio as it looked dull as they seemed to only use one flood light because much as the light covered a wide area there were still shadows at the background of the presenters. This needed the standard lighting format of the key, fill and backlight to kill the shadows.

Also, the use of the new trend of a digital studio that plays with the eyes of the viewer to think that it is an actual studio seems to be working for KTN apart from the sports segment which makes it look so “not real/fake”. The presenters at times look as if they have “floating heads”.

In terms of news content, it is delivered conclusively and with a wide variety of news beats, though there seems to be a faint inclination of agenda within the news items covered.

NTV PRIME TIME NEWS

The NTV staff to me seem to be the most authoritative as they seem to have a sense of seriousness in terms of confidence, dressing, command of language and persuasion. The reporters are also as daring and creative as they get very interesting news beats. A good example is Mr. Lolani Kalu who even reports news in the eyes of a chicken in the luhya land. The editors are also just as active in news presentation just as the reporters and the anchors as we see Mr. Linus Kaikai also conducting exclusive interviews with rare personalities.

Also, through NTV’s innovative coverage of news from different counties is very interesting as they took normal Kenyan broadcast journalism into another level; The NTV County Edition. They moved from county to county with a portable studio and made great use of web journalism too as they constantly posted news even on their Facebook page and their website.

The lighting in the outdoor studio was good although at times they faced the challenge of natural events such as flying insects and strong wind which caused distortion in the highly sensitive lapelle microphones they used for presentation. Also, at the studio, the lighting was very good and the use of the virtual studio was effective, thus, commendable.

CITIZEN PRIME TIME NEWS

The CITIZEN staff is also very eloquent and very flexible too in terms of presentation and can also ad-lib easily while adding important detail to presented news items. I am fond of their good use of the portable cameras that one can move about with form the news room to the studio which is creative and also the boom camera which captures a very rare aerial shots form within the studio. Also, their lighting is very good and their studio is very wide which allows an anchor to move about the studio creating interest during presentation.

KBC PRIME TIME NEWS

The KBC staff has really evolved over the years to adapt to the latest mode of news presentation and I think upon what I constantly observe, their work is commendable. The use of a virtual studio is still under progress and especially during sports news presentation and analysis. The lighting is fair though at times it seems to have too much contrast and sometimes brightness perhaps an issue with white-balancing as well as the image setup of the cameras. The anchors dress very smart and good for TV as they avoid very bright colors, patterns and shiny jewelry as well as extreme make-up.

There is little use of camera movement within the studio which tends to create boredom.

Michelle Ayuma Senda

07-1396