It came with little fanfare (really only a couple of tweets from host Bill McDonald), however this week the Queensland edition of Ten Evening News decided to try something new.
McDonald was in a holding pattern between his 5pm news-reading duties and the 6:30pm program on Tuesday 15/03/11 and fired off a tweet asking for questions for Professor John Bell who he was to interview regarding the nuclear meltdown in Japan as a result of the tsunami. They sadly ran out of time to fire the questions at Prof Bell, however they did hold the questions over to the Wednesday 16/03/11 program:
On the whole it was pretty slick, and good on Channel 10 for getting the Professor back to answer a selection of questions offered. Lots of people have real concerns about the situation in Fukushima & it’s far too easy to believe a lot of the FUD flying around. Havng an expert available to answer viewers questions was a great idea. When asked about the initiative, Bill McDonald offered this:
So here’s your chance Qld (and other TEN watching states)… what do you think of ‘your twitter questions answered’ as a part of the Ch10 6:30pm News bulletin. Should it happen in all bulletins? Was it a distraction? What was good and what wasn’t? Inquiring minds are watching and want to know!
I think it is a great idea. Too often we are forced fed information and have very little options when it comes to getting questions answered. Being one of the 3 people whose tweets were answered, it filled in a big blank for me and that is great.
If Channel 10 news at 6.30pm provides this resource and other networks don’t. I am more likely to watch it as the average person on the street will most likely ask the question that we are all thinking and there is a chance it will be answered.
Well done Channel 10!
Jack
@iJack72