Wogan: Reading the news is easy and Fiona Bruce wears too much lipstick

Published on Wednesday 2 September 2009 22:02

A KNIGHT of the goggle-box has lanced the egos of Britain's newsreaders by dismissing their craft as "the easiest job in the media".

Veteran broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan joined the debate about the value of certain broadcasters by dismissing the skill of newsreading as "a piece of cake".

While practitioners may defend the complexities of live news broadcasting while juggling the pronunciation of complex names, Sir Terry, who attracts eight million to his Radio 2 show, has laid into huffy "self-important" presenters.

He blasts the profession in new book Where Was I?! The World According To Terry Wogan. In the book, published on 9 September, the 71-year-old star refers to an incident in which a journalist stormed out of a studio because he did not want to be in the same newsroom as his co-presenter.

He suggests the journalist had a fit of pique because his co-host was associated with makeover shows rather than hard news.

"Why your man left in such a huff is a mystery," Sir Terry says. "Newsreading is not something to get self-important or petulant about, it's a piece of cake, the easiest job in the media. Get your good suit and tie on, a quick dab in make-up (in Fiona Bruce's case, the lippy is going to take a tad longer), make yourself comfy and here comes the six o'clock news, all written nicely and clearly before your very eyes. Read it clearly and distinctly, ask the reporter the questions you have written down in front of you and there!"

Sir Terry concludes: "And before you start with the 'fair play old boy, there's more to it than that!', I was a radio and TV newsreader and there isn't."

The presenter is renowned for his forthright views. Before stepping down as the BBC's Eurovision Song Contest host, he lamented that the event had become "predictable" and was "no longer a music contest".

Last night Alan Douglas, who worked on Reporting Scotland for 17 years and is now a director of media consultancy The Broadcasting Business, which provides training in TV techniques, defended newsreaders.

He said: "There maybe wasn't much to it when Terry Wogan was a newsreader but things have changed dramatically since his day. Today's news presenters are journalists and they write most of what they say.

"With rolling, fast-moving news and state-of-the-art technology, they have to be quick thinkers, too. Terry wouldn't be able to cope if he was thrown into a news studio today."

It was a sentiment shared by his wife, Viv Lumsden, who said: "I've hosted chat shows and many other TV and radio programmes, including Children in Need – and they were all far easier than doing the news, because much of the research had already been done and you had a clear idea of what was going to happen, who you were going to interview and what they were likely to say. News presenting is far tougher."

And John Mackay, presenter of STV News, said: "Perhaps it seems easy because the good ones make it look like that."