English newscasters
Some English newsreaders we have in our electronic media are simply excellent and the quality of their news reading either in the radio or on the T.V. is as good as, if not better than that in the international media like the BBC, CNN, Al Jazira, All India Radio or Doordarshan to name a few.
However, it is very sad that the majority of the English newsreaders or the newscasters are of extremely poor quality and the listeners or the viewers (me included) find it difficult to understand many of the words in a sentence or even the whole sentence. As a result you will have to pay extra attention to every word the newsreader utters. This, however, will deprive the viewers/ listeners of the joy of news watching or listening. This happens, in my opinion, due to lack of training or even no training of the newscasters before they are put on the air. As a result, the newscasters while reading news on the T.V. and/or Radio chew part of the words with twisted lips or grinding teeth apparently to sound or appear impressive.
English is a language of phonetics' which means that correct pronunciation of each word with the right intonation on the right part of the word is essential to make the word sound right, smooth and pleasant to the listener's ears. Unfortunately, incorrect pronunciation with wrong intonation on the wrong part of the word is painfully galore with most of our newscasters due to lack of training and/or lack of knowledge of the language itself.
News casting on the electronic media or news reading on the radio is an art and not a science.
You may be having a PhD in the English literature or language but that will not necessarily make you a quality newscaster. News casting is more like acting on the stage or acting in a radio drama. It is a matter of training and hard practice which will make a person a quality newscaster or a near perfect newsreader.
My humble suggestion to the Radio and T.V. stations will be that after they have primarily selected their potential future news persons, they should send them to a mini “Training Camp” or more like an “Orientation Camp” run or supervised by news casting celebrities.
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