NON-STOP NEWS
Monica Wilson, the foreign correspondent of a television news company talks about her job.

The limitations of broadcasting were brought home to me when I was reporting recently on a crisis on the other side of the world.These days we are faced with doing non-stop broadcasting. Even if/though a television channel does not have to have non-stop news output, like the one I work for, it has non-stop news input.

Twenty-four hour coverage is complicated by any time difference. In my recent assignment we were eight hours ahead of the time in London. The whole team, about 25 people, gathered together at 7.30 am to discuss things and get the camera crews out on the streets. By lunchtime we were editing, and by mid-afternoon we were doing live two-way reports for Breakfast Time News.

By the evening the lunchtime news was being done, and by midnight we were into the Six O'clock News, with another live two-way report for the Nine O'clock News at five in the morning. The problem with such a twenty-four hour operation, apart from the lack of sleep, is that you end up broadcasting rather than reporting.

People say, 'What was it like out there?' And I say, 'How do I know?' I would/could have spent more time on the streets if I had not had to prepare so many bulletins !!