Max Atkinson's Blog

Someone else has noticed the obsession with graphics on BBC news programmes

Today's 'World Book Day' feature in The Times Review section invited sundry celebrities and authors to recommend 'One to give' to someone else.

Any disappointment I might have had that no one mentioned any of my books quickly turned into delight when I saw that I may have a supporter in my campaign against the BBC's obsession with graphics and PowerPoint style presentations in their news programmes.

At least, that's what novelist Philip Pullman seems to be referring to in the highlighted section of his contribution below. And, as I agree with pretty much everything else in his Saturday morning rant, I thought it worth reproducing in full:

PHILIP PULLMAN: ONE TO GIVE

This is a book that doesn’t yet exist. It would describe in great detail the profound irritation, often amounting to rage, generated by films made with shaky hand-held cameras, by the over-use of “dramatic” close-ups, by background music under speech, by incessant background music generally, by TV news programmes that think it will be clever to illustrate every image in a news report (“The wheels have come off the Chancellor’s Budget plans” — so we have to see some wheels. Newsnight is the worst offender here), by the jump-cuts and smash-cuts in action films — often several per second — that substitute rapid movement of the point of view for meaningful action, by “unusual” camera angles that show what the scene would look like to a fly on the ceiling or a mouse on the floor to no narrative purpose whatsoever. I’d give this book to every producer or director whose work has annoyed the hell out of me.

And, while I’m at it, I’d give a similar book to every novelist who resorts unnecessarily to the present tense*. It’s a simpering, wincing, arch, fey, kittenish sort of affectation that ought to be stamped on firmly (my emphasis & asterisk).

(* To which I would add the rise of history in the present tense, which seems to have become the norm in programmes like Melvin Bragg's In Our Time on BBC Radio 4, not to mention the 'open-mouthed school of acting').

RELATED POSTS:

BBC Radio 5 Live interview on the TV election debates

I would normally be far too modest to post a clip of myself appearing on a radio show (?). But Jason Blackwell asked me via Twitter if I could make the BBC Radio 5 Live interview I did a few days ago available for people like him who are based in the USA.

Luckily for him, Martin Shovel, to whom thanks for taking the time and trouble, made a copy of it and sent it to me as 'possible blog fodder' - which has now proved too big a temptation for me to resist.

As you'll hear, I'm still sceptical about how the organisers of the 'debates' think they're going to police the rules they've agreed - for more on which, see my earlier post on TV Debate Claptrap: a Warning to those cooking up rules for the leaders' election debates.

Talking about the risks politicians face in walking the tightrope of interviews and Q-A television programmes, I also mentioned Mrs Thatcher's comment about people who 'drool and drivel that they care' just before the 1987 general election, a video clip of which can be viewed HERE.

Michael Foot's memorable oratory

For me, news of the death of former Labour Party leader Michael Foot brought back memories of the days when I was doing research for my book Our Masters' Voices, which included a section comparing the speaking effectiveness of him and Mrs Thatcher during the 1983 general election.

In those days, British television companies still showed quite a lot of speeches on their news programmes and it had been easy enough to collect examples of Mrs Thatcher using the main rhetorical techniques and video clips of her being applauded by enthusiastic supporters.

But, although Michael Foot had a reputation for being a very effective orator, it was almost impossible to find any comparable video clips of him using the same techniques, let alone receiving much in the way of applause. In fact, in some of the clips discussed in my book, he'd come across as uncharacteristically stumbling and long-winded.

A style that failed to meet the demands of the media

The problem was that Mr Foot was at his best when speaking without a script. But, early in the 1983 campaign, the media had started to complain that there was too much of a gap between the advance press releases of his speeches and what he actually said from the platform. To make life easier for reporters, he took to reading out the text of the pre-released speeches word for word - a style of delivery with which he was quite unfamiliar.

To make matters worse, Michael Foot didn't have very good eyesight - and no one in the Labour Party had thought of equipping him with a teleprompter. As a result, he spent most of his time glued to his scripts, hardly ever looking up at the audience and his delivery was much more hesitant than when he was free to speak without a text.

The day his advisors ignored a free tip

At some stage, his advisors must have become worried enough about how he was coming across for one of them phone me asking for help. When I asked what kind of fee they had in mind, I was told that they assumed I was a Labour supporter who would be happy to do it for nothing.

When I refused, the voice the other end of the phone pressed me further "But surely you could just give us at least one tip without us having to pay anything?"

"OK" I said "tell him to get some rimless spectacles."

The reason was that Mr Foot used to wear very thick horn-rimmed glasses, which made his eyes almost invisible to viewers (for more on which, see earlier posts on President Zuma's dark glasses and Tony Benn's hypnotic eyes), especially when he was looking down at a script.

But they knew best, and Micael Foot's stumbling campaign carried on unchanged - not that I'd be foolish enough to claim that my generous advice, however accurate it may have been, could have saved him or his party from the disastrous result that followed.