This post — Reality TV – in the newsroom? — has me wondering if new video rules at Britain’s Channel 5 are the equivalent of a recent attempt by a Texas newspaper to ban puns in headlines: something that strikes at the core of the art.
Among the new rules for news video are no more cutaways and no more contrived shots, such as the reporter and subject strolling while talking. In their effort to keep it real, they’ve also banned “noddys,” those after-the-interview shots of reporters re-asking their questions or nodding sagely.
Interesting. Some of these seem to toss out staples of TV news reporting. And they also seem to have the affect of lessening the emphasis on the reporter, in favour of the story, although I could be reading too much into the new rules.
Update: The comment Stewart Pittman has left is only an excerpt from a longer post he wrote on this at Lenslinger Blues.
TAGS: TV, NEWS, JOURNALISM, TRANSPARENCY
thanks for linking to my blogpost Mark.
I agree with Lenslinger – this is a very positive move. In racing to catch up with the web MSM has focused way too much on small cams and way too little on authenticity.
Very interesting to see whether the rules take hold in the UK and make it over the ocean.
…Ambiguities aside, I applaud the intentions of Channel 5 – even if it does smack of deck chairson the Titanic. Nod-shots, cutaways, awkward walks; they’re all stylistic issues intrinsic to the idea of reporter as ‘celebrated narrator’. Until we in TV news drop the model we’ve so perfected, our product will never fully evolve – no matter how many bad camera-moves you blacklist. I’m reminded of the many newspaper staffers forging ther own brand of visual storytelling. They’re smart to eschew the many silly things we do in the name of news and if so many of them weren’t such total assholes, I’d tell ‘em. Instead, let us remember that solo newsgatherers liek myself have been using this approach for years, when weren’t feathering backlight on high priced hair-do’s, that is…