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Two steps backward

We usually do paperwork on Fridays, which is a prayer day for most Maldivians since all are Muslim. It also means we have a chance to see how the TV bulletins might look without our daily input. The following comments are an honest critique so we can continue to work together to improve the broadcast every day.
The Friday night 8 pm had ZERO sound bites from real people. There was a long package about some kind of island redevelopment (more than three minutes) with NO soundbites or natural sound at all. Rilwan turned two good packages on illegal immigrant workers and a drug dealer court case, but they were buried too far down in the show and mostly file tape or official police videos. No standups in the entire show. A package that we assigned the day before on the skyrocketing cost of milk (up 137% over the past month) was a boring VO of one company’s product and an interview with a guy from the milk company. Since they were obviously in the store, couldn’t they find anyone who is struggling to pay for milk for their kids? There were also a couple of stories that were nothing but meeting footage…BOPSA.
The Saturday morning show had basically the same material but led with a long reader about — guess who — President Gayoom. The entire program was so poorly produced that at one point in sports you could hear the poor anchor coughing and clearing her throat on camera because she just couldn’t read any more! Fatima is talented and she deserves to have a better script than that!
Just want to let all my friends at TVM know that I am watching and hoping that you will be able to put the lessons from the training into practice when Bob and I are not looking over your shoulder. You are all talented journalists and you can do better!