On this blog, Reel Life, it is more likely that I will include a link to a manufacturer’s new piece of kit than to an article on journalism but today is an exception.
Michael Rosenblum, the man who trained the UK’s first batch of video journalists at Channel One TV, including my good friend, David Dunkley Gyimah, has just written an article on his blog exploring the idea of ‘Freedom to Fail.’ Essentially, Mr Rosenblum argues that if books needed the same number of people to write them (and the same amount of money to produce them) as television journalism needs to give us our ’rounded’ view of the world, novels and other forms of writing would look very different.
I read into this that Mr Rosenblum is having a rather large dig at broadcasters and others involved in the making of television (and film), arguing that creativity and risk are suppressed because of the over-complicated, over-priced nature of moving image media.
‘Everyone would be really fearful each time they set out to write something,’ writes Mr Rosenblum. ‘And we would probably all repeat tried and true formulas that worked. Every book sold would probably start ‘It was a dark and rainy night”… and maybe, maybe some highly creative person would try “it was a dark and windy night”… maybe. And we would only publish books by well known authors like Katie and Matt because we would be sure they would sell.
We would have some pretty crap books.
Like we have some pretty crap TV news.’
Read the whole article and listen to yourself agree with almost every word.
