What’s News? at the 1972 National Political Conventions (Process Edit 2)

Rough cut of an edit of interviews with journalists shot by TVTV for Four More Years and World's Largest TV Studio, which covered, respectively, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions of 1972. Substantial distortion throughout.

01:35Copy video clip URL Opening title. Montage of TV journalists discussing the meaning of “news”:  news events, television news, the changes that do affect people. “If you have to choose between change in a tax law affecting millions of people, and a political speech which would not affect millions, then the standards say you have to go with the tax law story.”

02:17Copy video clip URL TVTV’s Skip Blumberg asks ABC’s Herb Kaplow “What’s news here?” “Well, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew are going to be nominated and they’re going to adopt a platform.” When Kaplow is asked, “in general how would you define news?” he answers: “Things that happen.”

02:44Copy video clip URL Conversation with journalists about there being “no news.” Questioning whether reporters create or cover the news. “We cover what’s happening. If it’s a boring story then it’s boring. If it’s exciting then it’s an exciting story.” 

03:50Copy video clip URL An NBC camera operator discusses his job, in which he waits by the camera for reporters to come to him with interview subjects. 

05:42Copy video clip URL Interview with a man who shows a diagram representing the flow of the coverage NBC has of the convention. “This shows the hotels where we can send mobile units into convention hall. This is the TV pool camera and feeds. These are the telephone companies in Miami. This is NBC transmission, a trailer, the central point for sound and picture. There are our control vans.”

07:35Copy video clip URL Camera wanders through the back stage of the convention. A security guards ask for ID. A female NBC employee says she’s taking the TVTV group on tour. “Well, you have to sign in.” TVTV’s Megan Williams pins on her NBC guest pass. They continue wandering the corridors. The woman notes they are at the NBC trailer complex on Friday, August 18, 1972. A woman giving the tour says these are executive offices for Jane Goodman, Don Meaney. This is the newsroom. The correspondents check in for assignments here.

09:30Copy video clip URL  The TV control room. A voiceover explains how the system works: it’s headed by a director in charge of remote feeds. He selects shots and makes it available to the executive producer. At the same time there’s inside control where the floor man and camera guys are coordinated by a director recommending his pictures.

10:11Copy video clip URL An executive producer, possibly George F. Murray, answers the question posed by Skip Blumberg of what criteria determines what pictures you show to the public. “It has to be news or a part of the event itself. What you’re seeing now is a large crowd if we were on air now we’d go to this shot because it’s a sizable crowd.” When asked what impact he thinks Vietnam Vets will have on the convention, the man answers: “The Vietnam Vets against the war? I think they’ll make themselves known. I don’t think they’ll have an effect on the convention. Nixon is the President and he’s the only candidate. He’s picked his Vice Presidential candidate. The only think that would constitute a controversial story is the future of the Republican Party, the business of changing the rules for the 1976 convention. I enjoy doing documentaries. I’ve done loads of them. I’m doing this because I’m good at it and they asked me to do it. I did the Democratic convention and the 1968 convention.”

13:30Copy video clip URL When asked about criticism that networks manipulate the news, the executive producer says that theory doesn’t hold water where conventions are concerned. If anything the political parties have a chance to manipulate television.

14:02Copy video clip URL When asked how much of himself is in the news he delivers, the executive producer says “we project information with taste. That’s the only way I influence what I’m presenting.”

14:30Copy video clip URL B-roll of activity in the television control room. A director calls shots.

15:10Copy video clip URL B-roll of activity on the convention floor, packed with people. Mike Wallace says, “we’ve carried the program and it’s been tight, things we’d normally carry: key note speeches. There’s a fight over how the rules should be enlarged. The rules committee is still meeting so we can get our hands on the story.”

16:09Copy video clip URL Skip Blumberg interviews floor correspondent Catherine “Cassie” Mackin with NBC news. She says things here have been “very dull. It looks to me very plastic, packaged. The rules story is a good story, the fight between the big states and small states.” She says if she could change anything she says she wouldn’t stay with the platform. “I’m put off by how we’re staying with the platform.”

17:39Copy video clip URL Herb Kaplow says you’re supposed to do a sound editorial job on the story.

18:12Copy video clip URL Dan Rather says, “I’m pretty corny about that. I get very excited about conventions. Each one is different for me, and I do get excited about it. It’s a hell of a good story even though you hear people say this one was duller than the last one, not as exciting as the 1952 convention. That may be true, but I find it a terrific story. Any time you get this many politicians under one roof it’s, for a reporter, it’s like a kid being turned loose in that proverbial candy store.”

18:42Copy video clip URL Another newsman says this convention is “very slow.” The camera lights go out, but the interview continues. The interviewee says this is a new kind of television interview. Television in the dark. The interview quips, “It’s called radio.” 

19:18Copy video clip URL Kaplow says, “Even when they appear as though they’re going to be dull – dull in our sense – I think they’re important. I think they’re good demonstrations of our form of government at work, with all the imperfections that conventions have and that primaries have, and that our whole selection of a president process has, they’re still good.”

20:09Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain asks a journalist whether it has changed his life to be a TV star. He denies the charge, but says that once you’re publicly recognized it comes with advantages and disadvantages. It’s a pain when you want privacy, it also gives you entree to places you wouldn’t have access to.

21:35Copy video clip URL An NBC TV journalist files a report from the convention floor. B-roll of TV cameras. B-roll of the convention and various news reports being filed.

22:07Copy video clip URL A journalist is asked by Skip Blumberg what the decision making process is to get certain stories out onto the air. The man says “there are ideas we have to say, there are stories from the floor, and events outside the hall. Sometimes we get together and decide there’s a theme on the day. Finally, Reuben Frank, the boss, has ideas of what he wants to focus on and they tell us. They’re in charge. You should question them.” He adds, “we don’t decide on theme of the day so much as we recognize what it is. What the convention plans determines what news is. If a fire breaks out, that’s news. We don’t pick one or two things we think are news. These things impose themselves. I was hired 22 years ago, the same year Reuben Frank joined NBC news. I came three months before him. Every editorial organization has to have someone who decides. There has to be a hierarchy. Most good reporters don’t put up with favoring one candidate over another. Journalists share certain common perceptions of the world. They tend to reject radicalism. But I don’t think that adds up to the so-called conspiracy theory that we call get together and work against a particular candidate.”

27:10Copy video clip URL When asked how much of yourself do you project in the news and how much is objective, the man says, “I think a good part it of it is objective, hopefully. Sometimes you make jokes or get bored. I’ve only been an anchorman at a convention once before. You can relax and talk about your own theories. I consider myself a journalist. I was a floor man for many years. I don’t think any journalist tries to make something of their personality to appeal to audiences. News is a small community of men using their knowledge, life judgment, and experience to put together something balanced and responsible. It’s a lot of fun.”

27:56Copy video clip URL Whether he considers himself to be an entertainer or a journalist. The “journalistic function” of his job. 

28:48Copy video clip URL ABC Vice-President of news discusses his work in a control room. Working with Executive Producer Wally Pfister. 

30:32Copy video clip URL Discussion of the public, including women and people of color, not seeing people like themselves onscreen covering the political conventions. The VP says that he thinks that there are a growing number of opportunities for women and minorities in the news. 

32:02Copy video clip URL Discussion of who is being addressed by a news story. The importance of covering the media to inform the public of how they do their work. 

34:31Copy video clip URL End credits: “What’s News? at the 1972 National Political Conventions. Produced by Media Bus, Top Value Television, Videofreex.” A sculpture reading “NBC” is wheeled across the room. 

35:10Copy video clip URL Shredding lettuce, cooking onions. A gathering outside. Bart Friedman plays an organ on the lawn. Kids play. 

38:57Copy video clip URL A wedding procession on the lawn. The marriage between Mary Curtis Ratcliff and Cy Griffin.”Now would everyone here who believes that these two people are now married make some of sort to let us know?”

46:03Copy video clip URL Country roads.