Quotable Quotes – 2/3/2010
Two quotes from the “golden age” of television news as food for thought against the background of the upheavals in today’s television newsrooms.
“If there is a million-dollar fire in the middle of town, all of the stations in the area will have film of it that night, and it will all look pretty much the same – unless somebody had processor trouble. And chances are most of the reporting will be pretty similar. The same thing is true if there’s a plane crash at the local airport, the mayor resigns or a local bank is held up. The flashy, obvious stories are easy to cover. So the station which is determined to be outstanding in news coverage must push above this common level and press for a higher standard of excellence.”
- Richard Buddine, 1969
News Director of WSLS-TV, Roanoke, VA
“Let me play consultant for a moment. The reason you are being taken is that the answer to your news problem is right under your nose. In the first place, why buy someone else’s idea? Don’t you know what sort of person your neighbor’s like? Don’t you know better than any outsider the tastes of your friends and acquaintances? If not, I suggest that maybe you ought to be the one to move along. You’re suckers for a fad: editing by consultancy.”
- Water Cronkite.
December 1976 RTNDA speech decrying the rise of news consultants.
