Essay on Journalism and Documentaries Television Show

Cost is a different matter for any documentary that goes beyond a compilation of existing material. A rule of thumb is that the documentary cost runs to a minimum of five thousand rupees an air minute.

It can run much higher than that, and may involve a number of film crews, much travel and location shooting, and the editing of ten to fifty times as much material as is seen on the final programme, not to mention the high-priced brain power that goes into the inception, the planning, the research and the writing. David Schoeburn says of the documentary: “The result can never be any better than the good research and consistent reportorial care that goes into the job, and these things take time and professional com­petence”.

Each needs the right combination of a good writer- reporter and an able producer-the man who knows how to use the sight-sound medium effectively to ensure that serious material makes as attractive and clear an impact on an audience as does the more obviously telegenic material in entertainment. Howard K. Smith describes it as combining integrity with great reporting, writing and showmanship. Showmanship is no longer a nasty word in this field.

The best producers, the best writers, the best-on-air talent in television journalism today demonstrate when they broadcast that in television, effectiveness equates with showmanship and that integrity does not have to suffer.

At the station level everything is on a smaller scale as to budget, production, manpower, and facilities, precluding ambitious endeavours like those just described. Stations generally confine their documentary efforts to local issues or stories that lie within their capacities. And most of them turn out a considerably smaller volume of costly programmes and more of the simple, talk-type show.

Television News:

The shape of any news show is determined not only by the choice of what is news but by the emphasis given to different stories and by the way the story is written and spoken. The matter of emphasis can be illustrated by the newscast of a small radio station at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1961.

The announcer read six stories, all of which concerned the home town of Patchogue- the arrest of a policeman for grafts the announcement of a civil service examination, the opening of a new supermarket.

Then he said: “In other news-U. S. Naval vessels today in international waters halted a Soviet cargo ship on her way to Cuba…”An extreme case, but if the station’s listeners had no other source of news, what degree of importance would they have placed on the biggest story of the year?

The way the story is written creates a particular impact on the listener. A theoretical example is illustrative. Consider the report­ing of a labour-management dispute, and the resulting strike. One writer gives the two sides of the dispute by quoting a spokesman for labour and one for management. Then he devotes a paragraph or a film segment to spelling out the disastrous effect the strike is having on the general public.

Another writer quotes the spokesman, but he follows the part of the story with a paragraph or a film segment depicting the serious plight of the strikers and their families. The final impression on the audience will be quite different in the two cases.

Camera can be hero or villain!

In making the news or at least a side bar to the news, the camera itself is a hero or a villain in the television business. Once a late night interview programme was watched featuring a guest who came to the studio equipped with his German shepherd dog and a midnight snack. After the dog had been properly admired on the air, he was waved off and the interview began.

A whimsical camera­man let his idle camera follow the dog, and suddenly the director of the programme perceived on his picture monitor that, unnoticed by his master, doggy was quietly beginning to demolish the midnight snack. The director let the home audience in on the fun by punch­ing the shot up on the air, and at that moment, that was where the news was. The audience could not have cared less what the host and his guest were talking about.

Medium as part of the News Story:

A much more fundamental matter, one fraught with ramifications, is the point at which the medium becomes a participant in the news story-where the story takes a different turn because the medium is present-and here television outdistances all other news media for better or for worse, depending on the kind of event being covered.

The emergency of almost any kind that can affect a lot of people has a prime place for radio and television to be an element in the story-a rather constructive element. Much more common than the national emergency is the local emergency brought on by rampag­ing weather, earthquakes, power failures, armed bank robbery and in such cases it is the local station that becomes an actor in the drama.

Acting as extensions of the constituted security, safety, and rescue organs of the area, the stations help keep the populace from losing their heads, but they also become headquarters for collecting and disseminating vital information that gets people to safety, keeps them away from danger areas, and saves human lives.

Stations with well organised news departments in parts of the country subject to hurricanes, tornadoes, or blizzards muster minute- by-minute storm information-not only from all official sources and their own reporters but from dozens of their own listeners and viewers. By stating constantly on the air with the fast breaking story, they provide their communities with the greatest single emergency-instant communication.

A more important effect of television on politics is the part it plays in the campaigning of those running for political offices. The man to whom the electronic eye is kind or who can make a telling point over his opponent on the air or has the better chance of election. Television at all levels of politics has often shown itself to be the element that tips the balance.

William A. Wood says in this connection:

“A discussion of television’s determination of what the news is, its participation in the story, and it’s actually playing a part in changing the course of events, is not complete without the inclusion of one other facet of the peculiarly close interplay between the medium and the activities it reports.

This is the function of television as an originator of news. For a long time the men of television journalism have made news by getting newsmakers to say something newsworthy on the air before they say it anywhere else.

With television’s growing power, this device has come into widespread usage with the increasing co­operation of public officials and others in the news who finds television a most effective vehicle for expressing themselves to the public. On has only to read the newspaper quotes to see that a substantial number of stories have their origin on the news or public affairs programme of a broadcast station or network”

Remaining above board:

In the area of public affair programmes television enjoys one great advantage but works under one great disadvantage. It can and does air such programmes in prime view­ing time; but it has not enough money to spend. Until the budgets are better, this arm of television cannot consistently deliver results in its air time, the equal of what commercial television produces.

The in-depth programme is an arm of electronic journalism that is of deepest importance. It can do more than inform, it can enlighten its audience. It can get at the essence of a thousand questions that affect our lives.

A broadcaster may live successfully with a policy of maximum news and public affairs programming. He may grapple with tough, controversial subjects, dig into them, letting the chips fall where they may, and leave no doubt that he is out to make those things happen that he thinks should happen. He is a journalist with a very real commitment.

Then a broadcaster may-and a great many do-live with a policy which lies somewhere in between these two extremes. Among these the degree of their commitment most often depends on their approach to what is called commentary, controversy and persuasion. In fact, quite often some responsible broadcasters raise an ethical question whether their role should go beyond reporting the news.

Uncommitted to Ideology:

They ask, is television’s proper role-outside of its entertain­ment function-to dissent, to persuade, to commit publicly to a firm point of view ? Or is it not to chronicle the events of our day as objectively as possible and leave it to the audience to make its own judgments? It may not be just a question of whether the man who makes the decision-broadcast management-is courageous or cautious.

It is a question of whether enough men in broadcasting have the wisdom to tell the nation or the community what to do about matters of vital importance; whether with an instrument as powerful as television, the potential for doing harm is not as much to be considered as the potential for doing good. If one point of view is promulgated, is there not a responsibility to present the other side or sides? But does this not neutralize the effect of taking any point of view at all?

There is an honest disagreement on questions like these among broadcasters, which may be summarized in the views of two eminent spokesmen, both newsmen by background. Howard K. Smith says: “Truth is where you find it”.

He maintains that if the facts show that a position is called for by the journalist, a position should be presented to the audience. Former NBC President Kitner says, “It is not our job to take sides. We should present the story objectively and let the public decide for themselves.”

Regulatory Obligations

Those who tackle this kind of journalistic responsibility do not share the carte blanche freedom enjoyed by the press. For in taking sides, broadcasters may incur a regulatory obligation to present the other side or sides.

Even when it encourages editorializing and the airing of current issues, the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. requires that all stations afford a reasonable opportunity for the expression of views that are in contrast to positions taken by the station itself or by those who use the station, when they involve controversial issue of public importance.

The Commission does not require that this be done in exactly the same number of minutes of exactly equal airtime; it says that what is involved is the balanced presentation of issues in view of total programming.

Objectivity vs. Controversy:

Usually objectivity is compromised with a raised eyebrow, a pause, a tone of voice, a three-world aside by the on-air communi­cator. The order of scenes shown in the pictorial unfolding of a story, their relative length, the lingering of a camera on a specific shot, the very choice of stories for inclusion in a newscast, constitute an editorial judgement and express a point of view.

Whether deliberate or not, any of these things can exert an influence on a viewer, can create a reaction, conscious or unconscious, that may affect the opinion of the viewer who is supposed to decide for himself.

Neither objectivity nor controversy is an absolute term except in the dictionary definition. What each one means is what a given practitioner has it mean. One man’s objectivity may be another man’s story with a slant. One man’s controversy may be another man’s blandness.

Certain answers to what is controversial are not to be found simply by measuring the reaction of the target of the message-the audience. A story presented in a manner which the editor considers most objective can bring the charge of prejudice from viewers. Sometimes, a subject controversial by almost any definition may draw no public response at all.

Harry Reasoner, a News Correspondent of a U. S. Television Station says:

“There used to be…the idea of objectivity by which if you gave a certain amount of time to one side of the story you gave a certain amount of time or space to the other. The concept of objectivity failed completely……….. So……..they changed the old standards of what was objective to include the information available to an intelligent reporter. A reporter is not supposed to report things he knows not to be true without saying they are not true. He is supposed to inform and give background material as well as report what somebody says. And the problem is that these new standards are terribly easy to misuse…”

Investigative Reporting

William A. Wood in his book “Electronic Journalism” says that the forms of journalism calculated to stir things up-crusading journalism-are not complete without investigative reporting, some­times called enterprise reporting, which is the kind of digging for facts behind the story or unearthing unknown or only suspected material that results in the expose-the evidence of skullduggery whose very reaction makes things happen. This is a new departure for broadcast news, but it is showing promise at both the network and the local level.

John Dille says in this connection:

“Broadcasting can realise a role so dynamic in its magnitude that it is hard to assess only by casting off some of its shackles and inhibitions. Some of these are imposed by self-aggran- dizing ownerships or management, some by failure of broad­casters to stand up to the regulators, and some by inertia”

This subject can be concluded with a quotation by Norman Swallow who says in this connection:

“The challenge., is to seek out matters of public concern and openly condemn them as shameful or praise them as examples of democratic achievement, to avoid the trap of believing that politicians and other public figures are themselves enough, for ultimately the subject-matter of public affairs is people, and they are forgotten at our peril and in view of the impor­tance and power of television, at theirs. But the greatest challenge is to believe that television is also exciting or should be, and fight staleness and the easy way out with an endless ferocity.”

Air Editorial

In the United States where most of the Radio and TV stations are owned by private undertakings, the air editorial is usually a 1-3 minute script read on microphone or camera by either the |manager of the station or the news or editorial director.

It is labelled as the opinion of the station or station management. Federal regulations require the script (the text) to be kept available for later inspection, and on-the-air rebuttal of the editorial is impli­citly or explicitly invited by individuals, groups, or organizations holding another point of view. Many stations make large mailings of the editorial before or at the time it is put on the air, so that the text of what they are saying can be studied and agreed with or disagreed with.

The Editorial Board:

The ideas for station editorial subjects, and decisions on what position the station will take, are cleared through an editorial board which usually includes executives of the station, an editorial director or writer, and the news director. Most editorializing stations concentrate on local and regional issues. Three things appear to account for their avoidance of national and international subjects.

They are the editorialists’ feeling that he has not sufficient knowledge or resources to deal with these subjects responsibly; and second, that they are less important for him to take time for than local questions. A third matter, at least with some, is that sharp division in the community may be produced by the editorial on national and world issues, or the reverse-that there is not enough public interest in such issues to justify them.

Local Subjects:

There are a multitude of local subjects, many of which reflect problems which are common to many communities of all sizes:

Criticism of local political leaders and local governments; right to work laws; reapportionment; air and water pollution and fluoridation; housing and slums; segregation; schools, anti- poverty activity; traffic, parking, and freeways; crime; birth control and taxes. Some stations make running campaigns of one or another of such local or regional issues. Some take up a subject only once or they may return to it if they see no results from the first effort.

Time to reply a station’s editorials are, of course, most likely to be demanded when they are the controversial kind involving strong feelings in the community or among certain groups in the community. Most stations welcome requests for rebuttal from responsible oppo­sition groups, since this gets a dialogue going on the issue, which may heighten public interest.

Equivalent airtime is made available, and many stations provide editing help and coaching for the person who reads the rebuttal on the microphone or the camera. Occasionally, a station’s bold stand has resulted in court action.

The taking up of sides on issues by broadcasters, unequivocally clear in the case of the editorial, involves them in certain government ground rules which the editorial departments of the newspapers have not to worry about.