|
 Here
is something to think about as the debate continues in Washington
about the war in Iraq. It refers to how we read the news in a paper or
online or watch the news on TV. According to the Pew Research Center
for the People and the Press, “most Americans have little or no
confidence in the information they receive – from either the military
or the media – about how things are going on the ground.” Only 46 %
believe the military and even fewer than that, 38 % have confidence in
how the press portrays the war. These numbers are easily fifty percent
lower than what people believed at the start of the war in 2003. Then
some 90 % said the war was going “very well” or “fairly well.” A
precipitous drop anyway you parse it. The numbers represent a serious
disconnect suffered by many in the government and the press,
particularly in Washington. For more details, go to:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/445/who-do-you-trust-for-war-news.
Everyone knows that movies are America’s creative sweetheart. More of
our young want to make movies than write novels, enter journalism, or
become photographers, on all levels. Any other creative endeavor pales
compared to the desire to make a film. Despite that, it is TV that
rules most people’s lives. Here are some numbers about TV in the
United States from 2006 recently released by Nielsen Media Research.
There are 2.8 TV sets for 2.5 people, meaning there are more TV sets
than there are people to watch them. There are 111.4 million of what
Neilsen calls TV homes. The average home received 104.2 channels, up
by eight from 2005. However, most people watched only 15.7 of those
channels. Is it any wonder that many people complain about rising
cable bills for channels they do not want? TV presents its product as
entertainment, but unfortunately for us, it is worse than ever.
Americans are lazy when it comes to giving honest creativity a chance
to thrive. Advertisers must be salivating because of this latest
information. And rightly so as we stand by helplessly watching TV
picking our pockets with more junk than ever before.
A small rant, if there is such a thing. Consider this a heads up to
film reviewers everywhere.
As someone who has made many documentary films and has worked in news
most of his professional life, quality counts. By that, I mean the
shooting, the editing, the clarity of the storytelling, and the
sharpness of the graphics, the sound of the music and the sounds of
life. The story, that is, the why of the documentary is most
important, but without these other factors, even call them enticements
if done well, the story may dwindle down to a precious nothing. Each
element should complement each other element. When many film critics
screen a documentary film how well the film is made often seems to
have no meaning in the subsequent review. Often they will praise a
documentary which is poorly made because they like the subject matter.
Nothing excuses the film critic for ignoring the poorly made elements
of a non-fiction film. I suggest that the next time a reviewer or
critic regales you with his or her opinion of a documentary film for
its subject alone and you see no mention of the effort that went into
making it from conception to the sound mix and color correction, let
them know you know they are missing a major component of the film you
saw. After all, when you read a poorly edited book no matter how good
the story and its telling, the work losses its effect if it is of poor
quality -- meaning poor style, poor grammar, and a plot that makes
little sense. A well-edited book gets points because in the end it is
far easier to make sense of than something that is slapdash between
the covers. We should treat documentary films the same way.
Much of my reading of books is what I call catching up. I do that with
paperbacks because they are cheaper and I find them easier to toss if
I do not like the book. Here are two books, one a novel, the other a
unique travel adventure that I highly recommend. The novel by Pulitzer
Prize winner Philip Caputo called “Acts of Faith,” and published by
Vintage Books may be the best work I have read about the war in Sudan.
It covers the Sudanese who are fighting, the Americans, British,
Kenyans and others who contribute to it, the do-gooders and bush
pilots who profit from it, fight in it, and those who even have a
dream that that devastated country might someday be at peace. Packed
with information, it is not an easy read, but it moves swiftly, and it
has narrative power and a deep sense of morality.
Rory Stewart’s “The Places in Between,” published by Harcourt, is the
story of how he walked across Afghanistan in 2002. On the surface, it
is a travel book in the tradition of many great English and European
travel writers, but this is also true adventure. Along the way,
Stewart meets many villagers who live in isolation, real people who
live in that beleaguered country, including Taliban commanders,
religious fanatics, and Western aid workers. Stewart, a writer, former
diplomat, and very determined man, journeyed through the mountains of
Afghanistan accompanied by a semi-wild dog named Barbur. Aside from
Stewart’s bravery and doggedness as he travels through the worst of
winter, because of his humanity we come away with a deep sense of the
humanity of the many different tribes that populate the far reaches of
that mountainous country. These are people we hardly know but whom we
should obviously know better if America is to succeed where recently
the Russians failed and the British failed many years ago.
........................................................................................................................
At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
