Digital News: News Anchor Research & Ideas

What makes a good presenter/anchor?

As you can tell, the news anchor/presenter plays an essential role for any news report. In my opinion, I feel that they have to be remotely interesting as a person otherwise you may not be able to concentrate properly, meaning that you'll probably miss what they are saying. It's evident that the presenter needs to be able to talk with clarification and enthusiasm, but what is it exactly which makes a good anchor? I've decided to compare some of the most popular news presenters to find out.

Trevor McDonald

Being probably one of the most all time known presenter (however mainly broadcaster), Trevor McDonald was ITN (Independent Television News)'s first black journalist and has one more awards than any other British broadcaster. In fact, he's even been awarded an OBE. Commonly known for his past ITV show called Tonight with Trevor McDonald and News at Ten, Trevor is still hosts his own shows even now, such as Inside Death Row - showing how his appearance from news channels has switched over to something much more emotive and different. Below is a link to one of his episodes of Inside Death Row.

But what makes Trevor so successful as a presenter?

One of his main successes must be how he became lucky enough to be one of few to interview something rare or a rare person. For example, he was the only British reporter to interview Nelson Mandela when he came out of prison, as well as the only British journalist to interview Saddam Hussein. He's reoccurring appearance in EVERY ITN news report too will also contribute to some of this - if he is on the news almost everyday, how wouldn't people recognise him?

Nonetheless, after watching an example of him present the news, you can understand why he is recognisable:

   - The clarity and dramatic sense of his voice: He speaks at a slow and steady pace and isn't rushed at
     all, allowing the audience to clearly understand what he is reporting
   - He has his own unique persona: As he was the first ever black presenter for ITN, he will always
     retain an original persona. He has kept this style ever since he began as a news anchor, making him
     reliable in a way and more importantly consistent.
   - His persona is also backed up from the way he can maintain emotive reports/matters. Although this
     may not be as evident in his news reports, but after watching his documentary Inside Death Row, 
     you can see this connection he has, and the way he handles emotions.

Trevor McDonald reporting 9/11

Who would suit best for our news channel?

Considering we are focusing on a student-based news report, someone like Trevor McDonald wouldn't be the perfect match, however I thought it would be useful to research him to gain an idea on what makes a good presenter (in this case for a much broad and global audience, as it was ITV/ITN). 

Presenter's Age (Mid/Late 20s)

However, I feel that our news anchor would be much more significant if he/she was around the same age as a student (in the 20s). This allows the audience to relate to the presenter however the presenter MUST be slightly older - mainly so that we don't have an audience whose presenter is younger than themselves as this may lead to problems. 

Relativity to the Audience

This is where I came up with the idea of making the presenter almost like he/she is a graduate. Why? The graduate is likely to be older than your average student, however more importantly the presenter would then likely be inspired and respected by other students. Not just for being older, but because the presenter understands the process of university, so in a way has this connection with the audience.

The whole idea of trying something like this is to make the audience feel comfortable. If you are going to relate to someone, then you are more likely to be interested more. For example, if we chose to use an older, more political-based reporter, then our audience won't be as interested due to their not being a connection/link between the audience and the presenter.

If our idea of using a graduate as a presenter doesn't work, we could always find someone of the targeted age (perhaps late 20s) and use the miss-en-scene and iconography for the news report and presenter to show an environment on which our audience can associate too (however not to an extent where it begins to look 'cringey' or simply unconventional for a news report). For example, the presenter could have a casual yet smart dress sense, or the build up for the beginning of the report could show students together or even iconic university buildings, etc. 

Similar Example

A similar example of the style and the presenter itself would be like on BBC 3 '60 Second' News Reports. Although this is only news in brief, the presenters are always shown as less formal compared to those reporting national/international news. For example, instead of wearing suits and dresses, they are instead shown wearing everyday clothing (however slightly more smart). This mixes in with the whole style of the news report - it's very casual which may make most of the audience feel more comfortable and invited into listening to the news in brief (and BBC 3's style itself) following a similar idea which we are using for our news report. 

Tasmin Lucia on BBC 3 60 Second News

Presenter's Gender

At this moment, we aren't entirely worried about the gender of our presenter. We are more concerned about the presenter being relatable to our audience in terms of age and lifestyle. As our audience consists of both the female and male audience, neither gender would be more dominant in terms of presenting as there will be mixed views on which gender would be best.

Now that I have explored what makes a presenter good, and an in depth idea of what we want from our presenter, I will keep updating if anything changes. My group and I will be advertising on casting sites (such as casting call pro) to find the perfect presenter for our news channel, which will all be shown in the future on my blog!