The show suffered so many glitches it was painful to watch. The camera was extremely shaky as it 'followed' Duduzile around the newsroom, which did not contain much movement. At one point during Gareth Edwards' social media report, viewers were nearly looking at the ceiling with Gareth not knowing how to look at the camera.
The poor camera work was, however, blamed on a steady cam malfunction, according to eNCA's MD, Patrick Conroy.
But there are other things that can't be explained away. Firstly, the quality of the camera following the anchor in the newsroom is terrible. It felt as if I was watching a video recorded on someone's cellphone. At more than one point did the on air anchor try to link to a story but the story just did not air. Sometimes the camera would also just cut to someone else completely.
But technical mistakes aside, the broadcast just lacked meat on the bone. There was a news segment, which featured an interview, then there was the social media news with social media editor (which cannot be a daily segment considering Gareth anchors News Night on Friday evenings, which airs the same time as eNews Direct), then 11 minutes into the thirty minute bulletin we have have our sports report (which is earlier than what viewers are used to), then there was the weather report with Candice McKechnie (which has new graphics and presentation style that has less details than it previously had because, well, that is the theme).
After this I looked at the time and saw that we still have a lot of time left so what can possibly come after the break? Believe it or not there is a full business news segment and to end the bulletin off, we have entertainment news as well because, why not. [Trivia note: This is the first time eTV's prime time news bulletin has a scheduled entertainment segment since eArts was discontinued in the early 2000's]. The entertainment story was just another news piece on the Gareth Cliff situation with MNet, which definitely did not lighten the mood as the last segment of news usually does. Add to this the fact that the insert was setup to inform viewers of the development of the story, but viewers already knew this from the social media report from earlier in the evening, further indicative of poor planning.
The music used for the bulletin is still the same old yoga like music used for all eNews bulletins and not something upbeat to go with the theme of the bulletin. The bulletin also seemed very all over the show: now she is in the newsroom, then she is not, well then back in the newsroom, then not, with no link between the movement.
Over all, eNews Direct is a major disappointment. The amount of general news has been decreased and viewers who do not have access to 24 hour news channels on pay tv will be less informed by this new bulletin that seems just full of gimmicks.
Guess what? When it comes to news from the newsroom, ANN7 does it better (Newsroom Live with Chante Jantjies, 6pm), which is something Patrick Conroy who usually slams ANN7 for their on air mistakes, will probably not admit.
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