I believe I understand what is happening when you use the steps you described.
MC uses a Bookmark to decide where to start playing from. There is a setting in Options to define whether it will be at the start of the recording, or at the start of the scheduled program.
When you first start to play the recording, the Bookmark is probably at the beginning of the scheduled recording. But as soon as you start playing the program, that Bookmark is lost, and won't be used again. Whether a Bookmark is placed at the point you stop the program then depends on how long the program is, and whether you have progressed far enough into the program for MC to decide that you are no longer "at the beginning".
The
Bookmarking article in the Wiki describes the process.
I suspect that either an in process recording cannot have a new bookmark set (I think I have seen this), or because the program is in process, it is short, and that breaks the bookmarking rules. I'll leave it to Matt to comment on whether those could be the issue or not. But for me what you describe is almost expected behaviour, given the MC bookmarking process. Possibly that process could be improved for examples like this.
If this is the only instance of the problem, could I suggest that you Pause the News or other program rather than stop it, if you are going to restart it shortly afterward, and then just Play again when all the noise has stopped?