at the Edinburgh International Televison Festival is available in full here on the Newsnight website. Here’s a great line to be going on with:
I have to say that it seems to me things haven’t been much helped by they way they’ve been handled. We’ve had the preposterous spectacle of some of the most senior figures in broadcasting running around like maiden aunts who’ve walked in on some teenage party, affecting shock and disbelief at what they’ve heard. It simply won’t wash for senior figures in the industry to blame our troubles on an influx of untrained young people: the ITV Alzheimer’s documentary and the trailer for the series about the Queen were made by a couple of the most venerable figures in the business.
More to follow later.
paxo doesn’t have any credibility on this topic until he admits his bias in (for example) hectoring Michael Howard at the last election rather than doing a serious, objective report.
paxo should also return the awards he got for his crappy interview where he asked the same question of Michael Howard 14 times because (AS HE HAS ADMITTED) he (the great interrogator) couldn’t think of any new questions.
He is a hypocrite speaking for effect like one of the completely boring Grumpy Old Men.
I thought Paxman was quite good interviewing the evasive headmistress of the Saudi-funded London school that pumps its pupils full of the “Jews and Christians are monkeys and pigs” alternative to education. He didn’t let her get away with a thing and practically made her squirm by insisting that she answer the questions.
The only comparable BBC interviewer I can think of is Tim Sebastian, lately of Hardtalk – which should be renamed Softalk now that he’s no longer presenting it.
As for the rest of the motley BBC crew, they don’t seem to understand what an interview is.
His general message seemed to be: the BBC isn’t arrogant or elitist enough, should spend more money, oh and we should include propaganda for higher taxes in our news reports.
Now the BBC has problems, but old Paxo clearly isn’t the man to see them.
paxo:
“But the problem with blogs is the same as their strength: they don’t operate by conventional journalistic rules about checking facts”
He’s never heard of “fisking” so?
Or contrarian comment threads with commenters providing alternative viewpoints?
as a result, the blogs that i read are VASTLY more studious with fact checking and cross referencing than anything on BBC news.
nice of him to recognise the ridiculousness of the telly tax in our 24×7 sat channel internet age:
“The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?”
“The problem is, the anomalies are so enormous. The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?”
Hear, hear, Mr Paxman!
Paxman is generally pretty good at giving interviewees from all walks a good grilling.
I think he was spot in many of the comments he made.
His comment “Once people start believing we’re playing fast and loose with them routinely, we’ve had it.” may turn out to be quite prophetic…
The problem is I think he’s been threatened with the sack because when he was interviewed by Humphreys this morning he basically retracted all of his anti-BBC comments or tried to obfuscate so that he wouldnt appear to be so anti-BBC. The BBC ran with it completely and its later news bulletins said Paxman “Attacked television in general” and don’t mention his attacks on the license fee at all. Im guessing he never expected so many people to notice and he’s now conducting damage limitation so he can hold on to his job.
But if the BBC is so Stalin like as Paxo claims then why is he not on the way to prison/re-education camp in Benbecula where all the enemies of the State Broadcasting Corporation are sent or better still lined up against the wall at Shepherd’s Bush or White City and shot?
Paxman has struck me for the last couple of years as becoming more and more of the classic grumpy old man. Averse to change and the trendy new ways of doing things. A bit of a Michael Buerk in fact.
dave t
In BeebLand the gulag is called Salford (which I’m told is sort of like Manchester, but without electricity and running water).
Every time you stick a noddy into an interview, that’s artifice. Even the live television interview itself is artifice.
WTF is a noddy?
A “noddy” is used to cover an edit in an interview with a shot of the interviewer nodding. Alternatively shots of the interviewees hands, or other “cutaways” are used. Mostly because only one camera is used to film an interview.
The Paxman comments about need to go in the sidebar
nbc –
In an interview, have you ever noticed how the camera will focus for a while on the interview for a while, then cut away and show the interviewer nodding his head? That’s a noddy.
In a one-camera setup, the camera is usually behind the interviewer, focussed on the interviewee. Once that’s wrapped up, the cameraman will switch positions and shoot the interviewer nodding his head – usually inanely, for some reason. Then the two bit of footage are edited together.
It’s fakery in the sense that the noddies are often not shot in real-time, but after the interview has itself has finished. But the editing makes it look as if it’s done in real-time.
RobtE | 25.08.07 – 5:05 pm |
It’s fakery in the sense that the noddies are often not shot in real-time, but after the interview has itself has finished. But the editing makes it look as if it’s done in real-time.
Usually it’s to hide something the interviewee is doing – like closing their eyes, blinking too much or picking their nose. Even camera shake etc.
It does however seem to depend on how ‘liked’ the interviewee is. Sometimes they cut to a ‘look of disbelief’ or whatever to signal that the viewer should be wary.
There is also always the re-arranged interview which springs from the habit of ‘Noddys’. I spoke to someone who had been on ‘Dragon’s Den’ who maintained that he had been made to look a complete idiot because the questions asked were not those he answered. Naturally I only have his word for it but he did come accross as a prat on the program and, relatively, intelligent in real life.
Interesting comments Fat Contractor I recently spoke to a supplier who had been on ‘Dragons Den’ and who told some interesting stories. The contestants were kept in a lounge during daytime throughout the 2 or 3 days of filming never knowing when they were going to be called. There were endless free cups of strong coffee to drink and he was pretty wired by the time he was called. He didn’t mind since he and most of the contestants simply wanted to get some free advertising for their companies and in his case it paid of.
Still I bet all TV companies do something similar. I would love to hear from someone who had been on either “Holiday Swap” or “Wife Swap” as both appear very manufactured.
I can’t figure old Paxo out. Some of what he said – the anachronism of the licence fee is one obvious example – made a great deal of sense, but on the other hand he appears to think that the salvation of television lies in returning to the values of the era that spawned it. Or something like that.
He reminds me of the communist leaders of the 1980s. They could clearly see the lights of the oncoming train, but, having been indoctrinated in the system all their lives, couldn’t bring themselves to admit that it, itself, was at fault: it could be “reformed”. There would be more “openness”. But communism was non-negotiable.
He blames the market for emphasising impact over reliability. I would argue that it was television people misunderstanding their market that did this. Certainly the TV audience responds to impact, but not at the expense of trust. Now that we’ve had all these scandals over the last few months, what will sell in the foreseeable future – what, in truth, has always sold in TV news, but now more than ever – is trustworthiness. Granada didn’t make World in Action to make money? Pull the other one. It may not have pulled in the big advertising bucks of Coronation Street directly, but Granada, more perhaps than any other early ITV company, knew the value of reputation, and – take note, BBC – that it had to be earned.
“Granada didn’t make World in Action to make money? Pull the other one. It may not have pulled in the big advertising bucks of Coronation Street directly, but Granada, more perhaps than any other early ITV company, knew the value of reputation, and – take note, BBC – that it had to be earned.”
Sam: exactly. You say it all.
The Paxman quote is now in the sidebar.
Talking of tv fakery, here’s an incident from newsnight a few weeks ago.
They showed a report about some Safari Park wardens in Africa who were monitoring a tribe of gorillas.
As I watched I realised that one of the wardens was using his machete to hack ferociously through the jungle towards the spot where the camera was already positioned, thus begging the question “If the machete had to be used now how did the cameraman get there before?”.
The producer/director had obviously consulted the bbc book of cliches and discovered that scenes filmed in the jungle had to include some machete work. Consequently, he had set up the standard hacking through the jungle shot without realising how ridiculous it would look.
Didn’t the BBC also show a series about the sea, ‘The Blue Planet’ or somesuch that purported to show deep water creatures swimming about. Turned out some of it was filmed in a tank in Bristol.
What next ‘Lions of Africa’ filmed at Woburn?
Oh dear! Paxman has got the luvvies into a hissy fit.
Stephen Frears on Paxman:
“a vandal”, “a savage”, “a beating prefect”, “idiotic, public school” attitudes
“Paxman’s a vandal, a sort of Viking, an absolute savage. He should be taken out and shot. He’s like something out of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Not Ned East either, not Tom Brown. He’s Flashman, a beating prefect,” said Frears.
In the Newsnight interview, the theatre and film director Eyre had said that he judged Bergman to be one of the three or four greatest artists of the 20th century, prompting a withering response from Paxman: “He wasn’t exactly box office.” “The way he treated Richard Eyre about Bergman was just dreadful, like some public school hoo-ray idiot,” said Frears.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article2332420.ece
Why is Paxman coming out with this tirade against his employer now? I would have thought his normally ultra-astute journalist brain would have realized the BBC had gone Stalinesque YEARS ago.
He is right though, the BBC is losing viewer credibility and hence its right to exist.
Stephen Frears: lovely people, these arty bleeding-heart leftists, aren’t they?
Having read George MacDonald Fraser’s ‘Flashman’ series I’m not sure that’s an insult. After all Flashy *DID* more or less do the Right Thing – if under protest 😉
Plus Flashy won a VC! The man’s a damm hero and an excellent moral exemplar to us all!
Andy: Perhaps Paxman is smelling a shift in the wind, foresees Al-Beeb’s incipient doom, and wants to lay the groundwork for getting in with whatever eventually replaces it?
Though more about TV in general, I think AA Gill’s comments about Edinburgh to be worth sharing:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article2309429.ece
ps: Patience pays off. Having been told I ‘can’t post’ twice, and had one that was in theory successful never appear, by simply waiting a few days I tried again and the new shift were cool on my contribution to the Newsnight blog.
It wasn’t even that contentious, though I was less ‘JP for PM’ than most, and am still concerned that there remains an attitude that those who get to play with transmitters need to be left alone to decide what truth is and whether it needs ‘enhancing’ or not.
Unsurprisingly the twat Frears hasn’t allowed any facts to get in the way of a good rant. Flashman wasn’t a prefect. The basis of the antagonism between him and Tom Brown was that he wanted to be treated like a sixth-former by the juniors when he was, in fact, only in the fifth form.
Others have said it well though. Paxman isn’t against the licence fee at all. He just wants to return to the TV climate of yesteryear expressly so that the TV licence does not go away. It is indeed like thinking that you can reform Stalinism when in reality the whole thing just needs to get swept away.