Archive for the ‘media’ Category
That whooshing sound
The whole thing was a bit of a shapeless blob. So Tekevä Foundation was five years old, but then what? The interviews weren’t difficult to get but the interviewees were. What’s more, I had to version a short comment for the 16.30 radio news, which meant putting off work on the television story.
So yes, it was pure SNAFU. But here I am alive and well, and a second dance mat just arrived. Life is good, after all.
Weekly summary
But let me tell you about the nicest piece of television reporting I’ve ever had the honour of participating in. The day was last Thursday and the assignment was to cover the then-upcoming Jyväskylä Summer Jazz 04 festival for telly. I called their office and got hooked up with two world-class Brazilian musicians.
Jarkko, who is an excellent cameraman, tagged along as I went to the conservatory to listen to the gentleman practice & compose. What heavenly music! I’m starting to think that almost any music sounds good live, if the people playing are professionals. You still won’t catch me dead with a recording of Mozart’s one or other, but live jazz does the trick for me.
Back at the office I laid down the base audio track and spliced the interviews on it. It was easy as ever, sounded good and looked good as well. Of course the news value was a tad doubtful but hey, I enjoyed doing it.
On Friday I did a bit on the planned memorial for the Konginkangas bus accident victims but there’s really nothing to say about it.
Week 1 or: Back to Work
I spent the first two days getting acquainted with the state of regional youth work and produced a story in which I said pretty much nothing. Well, nothing except that there are huge differences between different cities. So far, so good.
Wednesday was spent preparing a story of the state of regional football. When I write ’preparing’ I mean that I slacked off to home early in the afternoon because I went to see a game in the evening. I videoed the entire first half and interviewed a few audience members. Sifting through the footage took most of Thursday even though the story itself was really simple. Not much content there, though.
And then onto Friday. I arrived at work promptly at nine o’clock sharp and had just gotten my jacket off when boss told me to not bother undressing but rather grab a camera man and get going already. To make a short story even shorter, he’d thought the appointment was at 13.00, not 9.00. So in we went to Central Finland Health Care District.
The idea was to do a report on surgery queues. I had absolutely no time to prepare and to make things perfect I got some three hundred pages of fiscal reports and whatnots. We started worrying about footage on the way to the hospital, as it’s a real pain in the butt to shoot there one has to get a permission from the hospital and each and every patient that is going to be recognizable which basically means that you can’t shoot shit. Suffice to say that at quarter past nine my spirits weren’t very high.
I was still feeling in the dumps when we headed back to headquarters four hours later. The people from Yle 24 called and asked to do an extra interview and grab some general footage for them too. I’d gotten long-winded answers from my interviewee, had minimal footage, wasn’t quite sure what to put in the story and was famished. A couple of hours later I’d finished the script and noticed that I’d left out the few things we would’ve had pictures on. But then the magic of journalism happened.
When we started rummaging through the digitized footage on our Avid workstation, things suddenly started to make sense. When I talked of queues, we could use the shots from the parking space. When I talked of cutting down on the amount of days spent in aftercare, we could apply archive footage of empty hospital beds. When the interviewee talked about how much money they’d used to cut down the waiting times, we could punch in close-ups of the fiscal report and shots of people reading it. And best of all, the story seemed to make some sense. Perhaps not the biggest news event of the year, but a coherent piece anyway.
I got home after eight and a half hours. I wasn’t drowsy but rather awake. It felt good to have tackled such a difficult situation and to come out on the top. In word it made me feel like a proper reporter again.
Writing vs. journalism
I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy.once you have these in place, you are set to go.
Not a bad start. But what interests me is his take on the differences of writing (novels, I suppose) and journalism:
A pity she does not appear to know the truth-laden aphorism of Karl Kraus, the Viennese wit: ”a journalist, given time, writes worse.”
I taught would-be novelists, poets, and essayists for three decades at Northwestern University. Many of them demonstrated much greater ability than I at their age, yet nothing much has happened to the vast majority of them. Or, rather, the world happened to them, intervening in their grand plans to become serious writers by placing genuine obstacles in their way or by holding out other prospects and possibilities: marriage and family, honorable and better-paying work, the temptations of journalism.
(Emphasis mine.)
I think it was Tom Wolfe who wrote that during the 20th century many American journalists considered their careers only as stepping stones on their way to writing the Next Big American Realistic Novel. After all, that was what Mark Twain and others had done. However, says Wolfe, these wanna-bes failed because they lacked the sine non qua to become a bona fide author.
I for one have no real interest in writing fiction. I mean, if I wanted to do that, I’d be studying to become an author and not a journalist, right? Maybe this whole all journalists are failed authors
thing is inherently American. Going by my gut feeling I’d be willing to say that not too many Finnish reporters harbour secret wishes of authordom. Most of the newspaper people seem to be quite happy the way they are. Maybe they’d like to get more space every now and then, but people seem to be quite focused on writing news, not just writing.
Which is not to say I’d like to be an author myself. Stuff like The New Yorker (the subscription of which is dirt cheap, by the way) or new journalism appeals to me greatly because of the combination of form and content. I don’t even want to writing fiction, because I can’t see the appeal. Does this make me a failed author?
Who controls the interview?
Which is the extent to which there is an element of artificiality in the way interviews are constructed. Because whoever conducts the interview – – edits out material, perhaps adds descriptions of the surroundings in which the interview takes place, the clothes you’re wearing or mannerisms. And that is why, I think, the interview always really belongs to the interviewer. Because the person conducting the interview is always responsible for the shape and style and presentation of the subject matter.
Obviously this stuff is told in an interview, where else?
”Me kaikki olemme samaa mieltä”
Parin rakastuminen ja kihlaus sai koko maan onnelliseksi. Kahden pitkään leskenä eläneen kypsän ihmisen liitto koettiin hienona asiana.
Minä ainakin muistan riemuinneeni kahden kypsän ihmisen ihastumisesta vallan mahdottomasti. Fanfaareja soittelin ja serpentiiniä levittelin koko päivän!
Mutta niin sitä yhteisöllisyyttä ja me-identiteettiä rakennetaan. Lukijan sisällyttäminen mukaan on tehokas keino, jos vastaanottaja sattuu olemaan samaa mieltä aiheesta. Toinen variaatio teemasta on yleisönosastokirjoituksista tuttu signeeraus Yksi monien puolesta
. Sama funktio, eri muoto.
Tarkoitin tietenkin sanoa, että
– Jalkaväkitaistelijan tilanteenmukaisuutta kielto heikensi. Taistelijan ei tarvinnut enää pelätä samalla tavalla kuin Tasien kanssa, kertoo majuri Tuomo Katisko kokemuksistaan joulukuussa pidetystä Pohjoisen Maanpuolustusalueen taistelu- ja ampumaharjoituksesta.
Mainittakoon, että taistelijan simulaattoriliivit poistettiin käytöstä, koska niiden paristoilla oli tapana räjähdellä.
Segregaatio
Kehitys alkaa huomaamattomasti. Haastateltavat, jotka eivät osaa sanoa asiaansa viidessätoista sekunnissa kameran pyöriessä, alkavat vaikuttaa tyhmiltä. He alkavat vaikuttaa ärsyttäviltä ja tyhmiltä ihmisiltä, joiden ainoa funktio on sabotoida toimittajan työ ja varastaa häneltä kallisarvoista aikaa.
Pian näitä onnettomia taviksia ryhdytään pilkkaamaan toimittajien illanvietoissa. Heidän nimistänsä tehdään pikkutuhmia ja -hauskoja muunnoksia, heidän kuvillensa piirretään viikset, heitä ilkutaan houkiksi ja kunnanhoidokeiksi. Ja kaikki vain siksi, että ihmisiä jännittää.
Hyi, toimittajat! Hävetkää!
Viimeisen asian muisti
Kävi nimittäin niin, että teknisistä ongelmista johtuen meillä päätettiin muuttaa tapaa, jolla uutislähetyksen sisällä olevat jutut ajetaan ulos. Enää niitä ei lisätä soittolistaan, vaan käytetään ohivalintaa. Tämä meinaa useampaa näppäimenpainallusta ja mikserin kanavien kanssa sohlaamista. Elikä:
Kello tulee 16.30. Istun studiossa headset päässäni ja väännän mikrofoniliun auki. Alan lukea epistolaa, mutta kuulokkeista tuleva ääni on jotenkin outo. En noteeraa asiaa sen kummemmin, kunnes Marika raottaa varovaisesti studion ovea ja vääntää pöytämikrofonin suuni eteen. Yhtäkkiä ääntä kuuluu myös monitoreista.
Tapaus alkaa naurattaa minua, mutta ihan niin amatööri en ole, että pokka pettäisi suorassa lähetyksessä. Virneeni sen sijaan kuuluu ainakin seuraavan puolen minuutin ajan. Sen jälkeen vaihdan tuttuun ja turvalliseen korvien punotukseen. Onneksi näkö- ja hajuominaisuudet puuttuvat vielä radiosta.
Kun palaan lähetyksen jälkeen yläkertaan, uutispäällikkö on tuiman näköisenä ja antaa satikutia. Todella heikko esitys oli ne kaksi ekaa minuuttia
, hän sanoo. Asia on oikea mutta sävy hieman väärä.
Ja koska puoli viiden lähetyksen lukeminen on viimeinen asia, mitä sähkevuorossa oleva toimittaja tekee, jään märehtimään asiaa vielä arkistoidessani lähetyksen tekstin. Suoraan sanottuna vituttaa. Vituttaa vielä kotimatkallakin.
Loppuun kuitenkin motto-tyyppisesti viisas ajatus viisaalta mieheltä: Täytyy taas vähän terästäytyä näiden arkiasioiden kanssa. Muuten jää pian auton alle
ja viittä minuuttia myöhemmin tehty tarkennus En ehtinyt vielä terästäytyä
. Näissä tunnelmissa päätän lähetykseni täältä tähän.