Sports anchors, with their shiny suits, make news boring

Dressed in a black shiny suit, a white shirt and a matching tie, the TV presenter appeared like he had walked out of a meeting with the company’s CEO to come and read the news.

His facial expression betrayed how the meeting had gone. Hardly smiling. Cheerless. He read every news item with seriousness (no ad-libs) as if it were a matter of life and death and his life depended on it, as the clips played in between.

Looking at him, he cut the perfect figure of a professional who knows his job — news anchoring — too well and did not want to distract the viewers with unnecessary smiles.

news funereal

The only problem, however, was that he was presenting sports news, the most popular section of the 9pm bulletin. Not even the news that Manchester United drew with some nondescript team in the English Premier League (EPL) could make him smile.

Mercy Cherono and a host of Kenyan athletes had performed well at one of those races in Europe, but the news anchor could not even add a congratulatory message after reading the news item.

He made the pessimists believe that his girlfriend had ended their relationship the previous night or worse still, his wife was giving him a hell of a time, as they are wont to do.

Now, this is the point For the Love of the Game wants to make. Why do some of our TV anchors make sports news funereal, yet what they are highlighting is all success?

AFC Leopards beats Gor Mahia two-nil, the anchor reads the news without oomph, making it appear like Ingwe have committed the biggest error in the Kenya Premier League.

Well, I understand that they are supposed to remain neutral, but does this mean they ‘kill’ the story with the way they present it? Let me start from the top. Look, priests do not conduct mass in suits; they put on robes. Similarly, doctors don’t go into theatre in Armani, and they can afford it!

So why should TV anchors insist on putting on dark suits and ties when reading sports news? How boring! Put differently, will wearing of jerseys and tracksuits make them unprofessional?

inject life

It is ridiculous that one should tell viewers something about Arsenal FC losing to Chelsea while dressed in a dark suit, as if he is in a meeting with investors.

Our TV stations should inject life into sports news anchoring. There is nothing wrong with letting the anchors dress in their favourite teams’ jerseys or better still, company jerseys, to identify with what they are doing. And then we need more sporty backgrounds in those studios.

Sports news comes last for a reason. I believe it is to lift viewers’ spirits after being bombarded with news about the proposed referendum, illegal brew deaths, mega corruption scandals and senators demanding new chairs and biro pens.