First with the full story 

9 February 2017 tbs.pm/10724

From the Radio Times published on 28 December 1967

Today BBC-2’s Newsroom programme is switched from late evening to 7.30 each weekday night and extended to half-an-hour — and it will soon be seen in colour. Peter Woon, the joint-Editor of Newsroom, writes:

Newsroom is a reporter’s programme — reporters working with cameras. At home and abroad, wherever important news is happening we aim to have a staff reporter there—and. If humanly possible, with a sound him crew.

Their directive is this: find out all the facts of a story, and turn them into pictures.

That’s why we welcome a half-hour programme: we want to use the extra time to show more film, which is the lifeblood of Television News. (Incidentally, we shall be offering the first genuine thirty-minute — we don’t stop for the ads. — national television newscast on either side of the Atlantic.)

Now, moving to 7.30 p.m. we have the opportunity of being first with the full story. We are flexible enough to insert a newsflash item into the programme within seconds of it coming off the teleprinter so that we can offer not only the very latest facts and pictures but also their explanation and relevant background.

We are well equipped for this. The BBC’s news services on radio and television are probably the most comprehensive of their kind in the world—because their resources are unparalleled. We have our own men permanently stationed in Washington, New York, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Bonn, Vienna, Central Africa, North Africa, Beirut, Aden, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Delhi.

This is BBC-2

At home, five correspondents in Westminster, three covering industry and economics, three on defence, aviation and science, an education reporter, and special agricultural and sports units. Outside London, ten regional and area newsrooms. And based on London, ready to go anywhere, twenty-four reporters — nine of them actually attached to Newsroom to cover all studio presentation as well as film assignments, whether at the docks or the foreign battlefront

These men, and their technical and editorial support at base, make up the strongest news team in the country, strongest in experience of both hard journalism and news broadcasting. At home and abroad, they are our experts. We don’t need outside ‘pundits,’ nor do we believe that the interview is any more than a part of the story. The whole story is told by our reporters and correspondents and it is told in the most pictorial way possible.

Among journalists generally there are often arguments about whether broadcasting is in competition with the newspapers. We have no doubts about it — we are. Not in any bid to knock newspaper circulations but in straight professional pride.

On Newsroom we believe we can give viewers all the news that matters in tomorrow morning’s papers — and film of most of it

We want to offer an informative, interesting and picture-packed opening to an evening’s television viewing.

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