Category Archives: Film & TV

Behind Your Radio Dial

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Before television took over the airwaves, Rockefeller Center was home to the National Broadcasting Company during the golden age of radio. This promotional film from around 1948 chronicles the rise of the media company from a small collection of 20 affiliated stations, formed in 1926, to more than 170 stations two decades later. The 24-minute documentary, courtesy of the Prelinger Archive, introduces the network and goes behind the scenes at Rockefeller Center, peeking into the mail room, sound recording studios, and music library.

The documentary closes with a look at the network’s budding television enterprise. “Adding sight to sound, [NBC] opened an electronic window” when it launched the first commercial television station in 1941, the narrator explains. “More than two decades of NBC radio have been dedicated to the spirit of public service. Now, in bringing television, network television, out of the laboratory and into your living room, NBC rededicates itself in this same spirit to provide the greatest medium of mass information and mass entertainment in the world.” Radio junkies and30 Rock fans alike will enjoy this journey back in time.

The Business of War (VICE News)

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In the last couple of days I’ve watched three or four news documentaries produced by Vice.  The one below is titled “The Business of War: SOFEX”

If you invest the 20 minutes to watch this you might conclude — as I did — the world is fucked. Not a little bit fucked. Not “It’s okay, I think we can un-fuck this.” We are Ving-Rhames-Pulp-Fiction fucked.

This documentary explains SO much of what is happening in the world. As you watch it, try to imagine Anderson Cooper or Brian Williams (and the corporations they work for) doing this kind of reporting.

As I watched these reports, I kept contrasting them to the network news formats of the past 20+ years. Half-hour summaries with forest fires and floods at the top, followed by fluffy pretend news at the bottom. With lots and lots of commercials mixed in.

In all fairness, you can sort of imagine a piece like the one below on 60 Minutes but only after the teeth have been extracted.

I spotted the link to this documentary in my Twitter stream. I can play these on my iPhone, any time, anywhere. Or, using AirPlay to stream them to my big screen, watch them at home via Apple TV.

I can only assume the gasping, lumbering news organzations of yore know they are irrelevant but just don’t know what to do about it.

There is nothing on CNN or Fox or XYZ for which I’d pay cash money. But yeah, I’d pay for reporting this good.

“The world has moved on”

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“One has only to watch US TV for 10 minutes to conclude that America’s communicators no longer have the intellectual resources and political literacy to mount successful, well-informed propaganda. The Fox Channel is for home-turf idiots. And besides, what would the state-subsidized propagandists be able to boast about? Predator raids in Afghanistan? Guantanamo? Thirty million on part-time work or jobless in the Homeland? America is not the sell it once was, when the economic growth rate was headed up and capitalism seemed capable of delivering on its promises.”

From a post at CounterPunch.org on the growing influence of Al Jazeera

Journalism in the Age of Data

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I keep reading how data visualization is the future of journalism but it didn’t sink in very far. This documentary (?) turned on the light bulb in several ways.

I remember (sort of) the first time I inserted some audio into a story that aired on the radio station I worked at. Zowie! How cool is that? Well, better than no sound at all (maybe).

As I watched this, I realized how little understanding is communicated by the sound bite or some TV Ken/Barbie sticking a mic in someone’s face. Real depth, real insight and understanding will happen online (although we’ll soon stop making that distinction if we haven’t already).

I was also struck by the really smart men and women featured. They are not pretty faces. You don’t get on TV unless you look good. I sure hope J-Schools are paying attention to this.

The news organizations (if in fact it turns out to BE news organizations) the bring these skills to the party will win and we’ll all be better informed.

[via Cool Infographics]