SBS World News Australia's new format is a hit, with me at least. An hour long instead of half-an-hour, the new format allows the broadcaster to screen deeper, feature-length segments. And by inviting experts into the studio, they are able to hold live interviews, providing more in-depth coverage of topical stories.The aesthetics are better, too. Especially, the design of the share and exchange rate information makes it easier to read the figures. The old design was very bad indeed, I thought. The set where newscasters Mary Kostakidis (a Sydney Uni arts graduate) and Stan Grant sit features an attractive, diagonal pattern that mimics the station's logo.
Naturally, the Special Broadcasting Service covered the funeral, held today, of Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink. He was gunned down outside his Istanbul office by a 17-year-old unemployed youth from Trebzon. The poor kid's father dobbed him in after having seen footage of his son fleeing the scene of the crime.
Out of sympathy, "[m]ore than 500 members of Sydney's Armenian community have rallied outside [Sydney's] Turkish consulate in protest" reports The Sydney Morning Herald. In Istanbul, "[m]ore than 100,000 people marched in a funeral procession", the newspaper reports.
SBS' coverage featured a U.S. ambassador saying that Dink was a force for reconciliation in Turkey. All the more reason to regret his untimely demise.
The format sounds like Channel 4 news here in the UK. I could not survive without this news show -- and is leaps and bounds ahead of all that tabloid shite you have to put up with in Oz!
ReplyDeleteWell, my daily habit was until recently to watch channel 10 news at 5.00pm followed by seven at 6.00pm, then SBS at 6.30pm and, finally, ABC at 7.00pm. I generally also watch the 7.30 report thereafter.
ReplyDeleteNow that SBS has extended its broadcast, I tend to watch it until about 7.15pm, whereupon they start screening sports news. That's when I switch to ABC.