TV fakery navel-gazing infects news programmes
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Following Jeremy Paxman’s “what is television for” speech at the Edinburgh International TV conference - and a seemingly endless stream of stories about manipulation and fakery of telly programmes - the focus of fears about how TV is misleading viewers seems to be shifting from entertainment programmes to news.
Now Newsnight and Five News are among those either outlawing, or considering whether to outlaw “noddy shots” and other staples of television news packages. The cheesy shot of a reporter and interviewee strolling along College Green is also, presumably, for the chop.
They’re daft and twee but I can’t see how getting rid of them is going to have any effect on improving levels of trust in televsion. Nobody, surely, has ever complained that such stuff is misleading? The content of the story is what matters, not the shiny vessel in which it is enclosed.
This new, relentless desire to remove every little editing trick from the airwaves means TV executives are in danger of stamping out the “magic of television”, something that used to be prized but has most definitely gone out of fashion.
No. 1 — September 1st, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I’m definitely for them keeping it real. More ‘joe public’ viewpoints broadcast on news bulletins, as seen on local TV, I say. None of this noncey ‘noddy shot’ stuff.
After all, I really give a flying fuck what the ‘erudite’ local on the high street thinks about the issues of the day.