Good Night And Good Luck.

I have just finished watching the George Clooney movie "Good Night, And Good Luck". The movie is set in the 1950's, at CBS TV in the USA & particularly set around the making of the "See It Now" programme featuring Ed Murrow.
The movie is well worth watching by the way & is based on a true story.

Bookending the movie is a speech given by Ed Murrow, the American broadcaster. In this speech he bemoans the state of American TV in the late 1950's & expresses his fears for the direction in which it is heading.
To paraphrase a part of the speech that jumped out at me, "TV has the ability to teach, illuminate & inspire. Otherwise, it is just wires & lights in a box".
What struck me the most about that quote was the fact that it is as relevant today, as it was in the late 1950's.

Although i can only speak with any real experience of TV in the UK, i have seen the way that TV has been going downhill in recent years.
TV does indeed have "the ability to teach, illuminate & inspire". But, that is so often overlooked in favour of "entertainment", exactly as it was back in the 1950's.

Yes, we still have current affairs programmes on British TV. But, these are often being pushed back later & later into the late evening & therefore attract a smaller audience. The content of these programmes has also altered. The topics covered are dumbed down & not so serious as in days gone by.
Even the main news bulletins cover stories they never would have covered a few years ago. I often despair at seeing "news" items about celebrities, or reality TV shows on the 6 'o' clock news.
Modern day documentaries, at which British TV used to excel, are not what they were. They seem to be made to appeal to the lowest commmon denominator & treat the audience as if they were all stupid.
Maybe that is another consequence of the emphasis on entertainment?

As Ed Murrow said in his speech, just because a current affairs programme may cost more to make, or attract a smaller audience, doesn't mean it is not worthwhile. If you don't allow TV to open people's eyes to what is really happening in the world around them, the implications may very well turn around & bite you in years to come. Ignorance can be very dangerous after all.

Another aspect of this topic that also struck me, was how we could also use that speech to iilustrate where we now are with the Internet.

The Internet also has that "ability to teach, illumintae & inspire". But, as i mentioned in a blog post the other day ("It's the Internet, but not as we know it"). Some people would like to turn the Internet into a giant entertainment system & in effect, a huge TV station.

Have we learned nothing?

If he were alive today, i wonder what Ed Murrow would make of this current situation?
Maybe we need somebody to make a similar speech today?

Good night & good luck.

Music Of The Past & Present.

If you have visited my page at http://andymooseman.posterous.com/ recently, you might have noticed a link that i have shared.
It was a link to an article on the BBC news website by John Taylor. John is the bass player with the band Duran Duran. The article was entitled "Is The Internet Stifling New Music? " & it is well worth reading by the way.

Without going into detail, he was saying how he felt that music was more exciting when he was growing up & that the Internet was to blame for this. He went on to say that because of the immediacy of the Internet & it's accesability, music was more widely available & this was, in some way, slowing down the creative culture.

Whilst i can see where John Taylor is coming from on this issue, i can't say that i agree with him.
Yes, there is now more music available for all of us to hear & be exposed to than ever before. But, i fail to see how this can be a bad thing.

Most of the great music of the past & present is influenced by those who have gone before.
There is a great musical timeline that can be drawn from right back to the days of jazz, blues & gospel music, right through Elvis, rock 'n' roll & then on through The Beatles, the music of the 60's & 70's & right through to the present day.
So, it surely follows that with this great educational resource that is the Internet now available, there is more music than ever out there just waiting to influence the modern musical artists?

If modern music is not as creative, or as exciting as what has gone before. I don't think we can blame the Internet. Maybe we have to start asking ourselves whether modern music is just not as good as it used to be?
A radical thought maybe? But, in my humble opinion anyway, it is a question that needs to be asked.

So, now that i've posed the question. I'm going to leave it hanging in the air & come back to it in the days to come.
In the meantime, i'd love to hear anyone elses thoughts on this topic.