Basic TV Reporting, 2nd Edition

Dressing the Part (1)

The attention lavished by members of the viewing public and the newspaper industry on those who appear regularly on the television screen has developed into something approaching an international pastime. Such is the level of interest, gossip and comment, it has become possible to believe that discussion about almost any night’s television news centres as much on what the main female presenter was wearing–and speculation as to what it might have cost–as on programme content.

Keeping the audience’s attention

Dress should not be important, but it is, because an audience concentrating on a frilly blouse, a plunging neckline or a tie with a curious motif will be distracted from what is being said. And that audience, once distracted, ...