While working as an editor in commercial television news I became aware of the phenomenon of the recurring news story (RNS). These are events that occur annually and will go to air each year virtually unchanged from last year save for fresh pictures and the odd random word change in the voiceover script. They represent everything wrong with television news, being the pinnacle of lazy journalism and easy airtime filler. You know an RNS when you see one: ANZAC day, Moomba parade, World’s Longest Lunch, Good Friday Appeal etc. I was reminded of this phenomenon on Friday while watching ABC news which contained a story about the AFL grand final parade and a story about the killed-in-the-line-of-duty police commemoration.

About 100,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne today to cheer on the teams competing in tomorrow’s AFL grand final. The parade route was awash with (insert grand final competitor #1’s colours) and (insert grand final competitor #2’s colours). Kids came face-to-face with their footballing heroes etc.

Melburnians dug deep today to give money to sick kids etc.

What happens on the day of an RNS is the newsroom chief-of-staff will allocate the piece to either the channel’s newest or most jaded journo – there is no middle ground here. The new journo will get the story because they are at the bottom of the pecking order. The experienced and jaded journo will get the story because they pissed the chief-of-staff off last week. The selected journo will hit the road with a jaded camera crew (there’s no other kind) to shoot some fresh vision to lay over the top of last year’s voiceover script, extracted from the news archive. They will then hit the edit suite manned by a jaded editor (there’s no other kind) and the new journo will micro-mange the story’s assembly while the jaded journo will barely stay long enough to hand over the camera tapes before hitting the pub.

When the RNS goes to air the autocue-bot will read the intro in a knowing voice, with just that right amount of cheese, cynicism and resignation.

And we will sit at home watching, content to consume such crap.