'News At Ten' veteran Trevor McDonald has revealed he wouldn’t be happy speaking in the chatty style of the programme as it is presented these days.
The ITV bulletin was rebooted in autumn 2015, with a warmer, conversational style, in an effort to set it apart from its BBC rival.
However, Sir Trevor, who presented the news in various formats for more than 30 years, tells the Media Focus Podcast that he preferred the “straight” delivery he used to give, to the informal manner adopted by current anchor Tom Bradby.
“I’m glad what I did was fairly straight. I’m not sure how capable or comfortable I’d be about expressing too much of my own view. I always felt that the News was the thing. You were just the guy who brought it in.
“What was interesting was what was in ‘the bag’. But I don’t blame people for trying to get a new individualistic style. There is a huge amount of it out there, people are trying to mark themselves out by doing something a little differently.”
Nor is Sir Trevor a fan of the aggressive interviewing technique favoured by his peers Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys.
“I never quite saw the point about being overtly hostile. I always thought you could use language. The English language is enormously rich. I always thought you could sharpen your questions by the words you used without making too much of a fuss about being hostile.
“I find a lot of the gladiatorial style a little uncomfortable. And then the main question is at the end, what do you get? Do you manage by adopting this style to extract more information from somebody than you normally would. I’m not always sure.”
Sir Trevor began working for ITN in 1973, and was promoted to lead ITN News anchor in 1992. When the show was axed in 1999, he moved to the ITV Evening News, until News at Ten was relaunched. When it was binned again, he moved to ITV News at 10.30, and later to 'Tonight With Trevor McDonald'.
He was knighted in 1999 for his services to journalism.
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