Journal of Contemporary

Ethnography
http://jce.sagepub.com/

The Technology of Objectivity: Doing "Objective" TV

News Film
Gaye Tuchman
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 1973 2: 3
DOI: 10.1177/089124167300200101

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>> Version of Record - Apr 1, 1973

What is This?

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 GAYE TUCHMAN is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College,
CUNY. She has published other articles about the social construction of news
and is presently doing research on the concept of community and on the
nature of social memory, in particular, the use of time-markers.

THE TECHNOLOGY OF OBJECTIVITY:

Doing "Objective" TV News Film

GAYE TUCHMAN

FROM THEIR PRACTICES, including their identi-

fication of &dquo;mistakes,&dquo; this article reconstructs television
newsmen’s theory of cinematic objectivity.’ It does not analyze
objectivity as a philosophic concept subject to operation-
alization. Rather, it explores the ways in which television
newsmen do objectivity by drawing upon visual perceptions
associated with either sociocultural or role definitions. Tele-
vision newsmen can manipulate the sociocultural and role
definitions of vision and space because film organizes visual
perception, and visual perception is affected by social
definitions.
There are many ways an object may be perceived. Perception
may be affected by role definition. For instance, waves may be
perceived differently by surfers and by nonswimmers, and
differently again by fishermen. Perception may also be affected
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Rose Laub Coser and Erich Goode provided valuable
criticisms of an earlier draft. Everett C. Hughes, Maurice R. Stein, and Kurt H.
Wolff supervised my dissertation, from which this paper is adapted.

[3]
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by cultural definition. For example, Japanese term a room

&dquo;crowded&dquo; when there are many objects in the middle of the
floor, whereas Americans feel a room is &dquo;crowded&dquo; when there
are many objects along the walls (Hall, 1966), although within
cultures there are variations by social class as well. Such cultural
definitions involve the organization of visual perception. Fischer
( 1961 ) even suggests that art styles, viewed as the social
organization of visual perception, are &dquo;cultural cognitive maps.&dquo;
In much the same way as I previously (Tuchman, 1972)
described lexical techniques commonly used by newspapermen
to claim &dquo;objectivity,&dquo; this paper catalogues cinematic tech-
niques through which a filmed story may appear to be objective
to newsmen. First, it considers the use of cinematic techniques
in &dquo;straight objective&dquo; news stories. (Elsewhere [Tuchman,
1973, 1972 , I discuss distinctions between objective hard news
and other sorts of news.) Then, by way of contrast, it discusses
the newmen’s cinematic treatment of feature stories. Finally,
the paper offers an explanation of the common survey finding
(Roper Organization, Inc., 1971; Time, 1969; Newsweek, 1970;
Hickey, 1997 ; Youman, 1972) that Americans believe television
reports to be more credible than news reports of other media.
This article is prompted by participant observation at a local
independent television station affiliated with a network. The
station is located in a top television market. The period of
intensive observation began in October 1966 and lasted eight
months. Observations were then gathered intermittently for
another nineteen months.
Relatively little of the field data is drawn upon here. This
seeming paucity of evidence occurs for several reasons. First, it
was extremely difficult to draw cameramen and reporters into

technical discussions. They could not explain their practices;

they &dquo;simply&dquo; did their work. (At the very end of the research
period, I finally resorted to showing the accompanying illus-
trations and some additional drawings to the &dquo;best&dquo; camera-
man-informant and recording his responses. All station
personnel agreed that this man did outstanding work; he was
subsequently hired by the network with which the station is .

affiliated.) Second, while noting that there is a &dquo;right way&dquo; to

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shoot film, the observed cameramen did not identify that right
way with objectivity. Instead, they argued that any and all film
was necessarily objective, because it recorded an actual event or
interview.’ In essence, the television newsmen claimed that
&dquo;film speaks for itself,&dquo; much as newmen in general support the
everyday and mistaken assumption that &dquo;the facts speak for
themselves&dquo; (see Tuchman, 1972: 667). Accordingly, the
reconstruction of &dquo;rules for claiming cinematic objectivity&dquo;
presented here is drawn from television practices and newsmen’s
identification of mistakes, rather than from conversations and
formal interviews. Finally, I have chosen to include materials
drawn from art criticism, since, as explications of visual
alternatives, they facilitate the task of reconstruction. This
decision limited my ability to include all relevant field data.

NEWS FI L M A ND CUL T URA L DEFINI TIONS

Like other filmed presentations, television news film portrays
four dimensions (horizontal, vertical, depth, and time) in three
(horizontal, vertical, and time). Film incorporates depth
through the arrangement of horizontal and vertical planes
moving through time. The film surface is flat; any one frame of
film exists in two-dimensional (horizontal-vertical) space. The
distinctive techniques used by TV news filmmakers to treat
these dimensions avoids what our culture would identify as
visual distortion. In this section, TV news film conventions
dealing with time, camera placement (angle), and motion
(movement through space) are contrasted with other con-
ventions that the newsmen identify as &dquo;distortion.&dquo;

The Time-Convention: Shoot a Constant Number of

Frames Per Second
In film, the dimension of time is determined by the sequence
of frames shot at a standard number of frames per second.
Cinema films will alter the number of frames per second to
achieve special effects. &dquo;Fast motion&dquo; may introduce humor, as
in silent movie chase scenes or the classic newsreel of the family

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of time-motion study expert Gilbreth described in &dquo;Cheaper by

the Dozen.&dquo; &dquo;Slow motion&dquo; may introduce tenderness or love.
Sequences of this sort run rampant in television commercials
and approach a cultural clich6: Lovers with soft shining hair or
glistening teeth gambol in slow motion across pastoral settings.’
With two exceptions, television newsmen consider main-
taining a constant number of frames per second to be an aspect
of objectivity because it suggests that they are not tampering
with the time-space rhythm of the subject they are photo-
graphing. The behavior of news personnel when a cameraman
mistakenly uses slow or fast motion indicates the degree to
which this assumption is accepted. If the timing cannot be
corrected during projection, the film may be discarded. More
important, the men do not point out the economic conse-
quences of the &dquo;mistake&dquo; to the &dquo;guilty&dquo; cameraman, nor do
they upbraid him virulently. The simple sentence, &dquo;You shot
that in slow motion,&dquo; is sufficient to elicit a frequently
long-winded and profusely apologetic explanation of how the
&dquo;mistake accidentally occurred.&dquo;
One obvious exception to this rule is sports film, where slow
motion is used to enable the viewer to watch &dquo;the important
action&dquo; by increasing visual accuracy to let the viewer judge for
himself (compare Tuchman, 1972: 665-666) a player’s ability
and acumen. A second exception occurs in news film proper.
When a dignitary or criminal enters a building, he may cross
from his car to a doorway in as little as five seconds. Yet the
reporter may need ten seconds to explain why the dignitary was
entering the building. In this case, the cameraman will adjust his
equipment to slow motion, taking care not to film the
newsmaker’s arms and legs or the moving arms and legs of those
accompanying him. Then, the dignitary or criminal seems to
requirc ten seconds to cross to the doorway, and the program
will have a sufficient amount of film to &dquo;cover&dquo; the ten-second
explanation offered by the news announcer. Television news-
men justify this second practice by noting that ( 1 ) the viewer
cannot perceive the time distortion, and (2) since the essence of
TV news is film (showing the dignitary smiling and hopeful or
serious and determined), the story &dquo;requires&dquo; this practice.

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The Placement-Convention: Place the Camera as Though

lt Were a Person of A verage Height Meeting
Another Person of Average Height

Television practices suggest that the placement of the

recording camera influences the &dquo;objectivity&dquo; of news film.
There are many angles from which an event or speaker may be
filmed. In the cinema, various angles are used to forward the
dramatic action. For instance, a low camera placement may
emphasize suspense. This technique is used in &dquo;The Maltese
Falcon&dquo; to intensify Sidney Greenstreet’s forbidding girth. The
camera may be placed above an action to suggest danger, as in
the perennial police chase across rooftops. This shot may also
be used to emphasize the physical distance of one event from
another associated with it.’
Television news film avoids shooting down at events when
recording animate objects (towns, forests, escape routes of bank
robbers, tornado paths, and battle fields may be filmed from a
heliocopter). To a news cameraman, &dquo;objectivity&dquo; involves
meeting an event &dquo;head-on&dquo;-the use of a camera placement
similar to a person of average height confronting another person
eye to eye. All else is condemned as &dquo;distortion,&dquo; and the
cameraman and reporter who jointly produces the affronting

footage are liable to receive an official reprimand. (Head-on

placement is sketched in Figure 1. The &dquo;distortion&dquo; involved in
a bird’s eye or worm’s eye placement is also represented.)

Historically, the use of the alternative perspectives sketched

in Figure I was not viewed as a &dquo;distortion&dquo; of reality, since
these are variations upon a fixed-point perspective. When
perspective was rediscovered during the Renaissance, these
variations were held to be another way to capture reality.
Mantegna’s work, &dquo;The Dead Christ,&dquo; and the rare oils of Paollo
Uccello are examples in support of this interpretation.
Sociologically, the significant factor is that in television news
film, alternative perspectives are called distortion. As such, they
are said to hamper the viewer’s perception of the central figure
or event. For instance, one informant, a cameraman, after

viewing Figure 1, recalled seeing a sequence of Stevenson during

the 1956 presidential campaign. A photographer had knelt and

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Figure 1: TELEVISION SCREEN APPEARANCE OF VARIOUS CAMERA

PLACEMENTS

captured Stevenson’s hand, as it extended to grasp a sup-

porter’s. The cameraman recalled that the hand coming toward
the camera appeared to be as large as &dquo;Stevenson himself.&dquo; He
meant that Stevenson’s hand was as large or larger than
Stevenson’s head, for he added, &dquo;You couldn’t even see
Stevenson, for Godsake.&dquo; Since a hand is as much a part of a
person as his head, &dquo;seeing&dquo; must mean &dquo;seeing clearly from a
head-on perspective.&dquo; Possessing this connotation, it becomes
an aspect of objectivity.
This connotation is an implicit assumption in the TV
cameraman’s work. The cameramen themselves see little vari-
ation in the way stories are photographed. As the head
cameraman at the observed television station explained, one sets

up the camera, lines up the reporter and the persons to be

interviewed, and then shoots. Although prodded, he saw no
variation on this simple procedure, and I never observed a
significant variation in either an interview or a press conference.
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On the contrary, public relations officers arranged the typical

press conference to facilitate this procedure and the room in
which the governor held his press conferences was constructed
to enable the head-on, fixed-point perspective.-’
Significant variations upon this procedure are only found
when nonscheduled events of a noninterview nature are being
filmed. Then the cameraman must battle to maintain his control
of the allocation of space. This may occur at a fire, a peace
demonstration, a riot. In these instances, the events determine
the camera placement. For instance, the camera may &dquo;need&dquo; to
be mobile to follow the course of an event. Unless the camera
would be jostled so that the resulting film would be &dquo;jumpy,&dquo;
photographers still prefer a head-on perspective. If the camera
would be jostled, it will be placed on a nearby roof or in a
suitable window, where the otherwise avoided bird’s-eye per-
spective can provide &dquo;steady film&dquo; and an overview of events.
Significantly, in this situation, the cameraman frequently
explains to his editors why he used this camera placement.
Typically, he says, &dquo;I had to go upstairs to shoot it; there was so
much pushing.&dquo; However, cameramen never search out a high
spot when other shoving newsmen interfere with photographing
a single individual. When filming one person, the head-on

perspective is maintained.

The Motion-Convention:
Adopt a &dquo;Fixed-Plane Perspective&dquo;
Seemingly, the use of a fixed-point perspective and the
&dquo;need&dquo; to follow the course of an action conflict. Technically,
if the cameraman, holding his running camera, walks from point
A to point B, there is not one fixed-point perspective. Nor is
there one fixed-point perspective if the cameraman achieves this
same effect by adjusting his lens. Technically, television news
film never uses one fixed-point perspective. Instead, it uses a
&dquo;fixed-plane perspective,&dquo; dependent upon a distinction
between &dquo;movement&dquo; and &dquo;motion.&dquo; A short digression to
materials drawn from art criticism is necessary to explain this
distinction and its relevance to cinematic objectivity.

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In art, fixed-point perspective portrays a point in time and

space from which the viewer examines the event occurring at
the same time, in the space called a painting. This is a
fixed-point perspective, because ( 1 ) the time of viewing is held
constant; i.e., the subject of the painting is frozen in time; and
(2) the space from which an object is viewed is also held
constant. Raphael’s &dquo;School of Athens,&dquo; a Renaissance por-
trayal of Greeks, provides an apt example. Obviously, a
contemporary viewer of this painting is living at neither the
time the painting was made, nor at the time represented in the
subject of the painting. However, the painting’s perspective
creates the illusion that the viewer is seeing an event from a
fixed point in time and space.
The notion of fixed-point perspective is clarified by con-
sidering paintings where either time or space vary. Figure 2
presents two pictures of this type. In the futuristic work, space
is held constant, while time varies. As a result, the same arm or
leg may be represented more than once in the same &dquo;frame,&dquo;
achieving the illusion of motion. (A more famous example is
Duchamps’ &dquo;Nude Descending a Staircase.&dquo;) The reverse
phenomenon is found in Cubist paintings: the viewer perceives
an object simultaneously portrayed from above, below, head

on, to the side. Here, too, the illusion of motion is created. In

Figure 2: SCHEMATIZATIONS OF MOTION

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the sketch after Picasso, the head of the figure emerges in both
profile and full face, while the &dquo;full face&dquo; seated body
dominates the silhouetted body. The tension creates motion
through space, although time is held constant.
In our culture, holding either time or space constant while
altering the other is experienced as distortion. As Moholy-Nagy
(1965: 118) suggests of Cubism,
The result was a composite view, a &dquo;distortion&dquo; as judged within the
conventions of the vanishing point perspective, but in reality it was
vision in motion [rendered on the picture plane] Distortion can ....

then be understood-in addition to its other meanings-as space-time

synonyms. [sic]

Moholy-Nagy states that &dquo;monocular&dquo; vision is wedded to a

fixed-point perspective allied with geometric conventions. A
two-dimensional surface obtains the illusion of three-
dimensional existence. Although it may present the illusion of
motion, it does not capture, portray, or exist in motion. For
instance, in Figure 3, oneperceives that the figure is supposedly
running and &dquo;knows&dquo; that the tree in the distance is larger than
the human figure, although the human figure appears larger
because it is in the foreground.
One may transpose this observation about monocular vision
in painting to the medium of TV news film. A sequence of
frames may have the camera start from the fixed point
designated &dquo;x&dquo; in Figure 3. The camera may slowly proceed up
the road, still filming the tree. Consider two possible frames
taken along the way. In Figure 4, x represents the placement of
the camera, relocated along a fixed line incorporating the
vanishing fixed-point perspective. That line may be super-
imposed upon the original diagram, as in Figure 5. That sketch
indicates that although the camera has come &dquo;closer&dquo; to the
&dquo;vanishing point,&dquo; it has remained in the same plane. In
Moholy-Nagy’s terms, it has retained monocular vision. In spite
of the movement of the camera or the adjustment of the camera
lens, the eye of the camera is not itself in motion. This
phenomenon may be called a fixed-plane perspective. In Figure
6, the fixed plane is superimposed upon the original diagram.

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----

Figure 3: FRAME OF FIGURE RUNNING

In sum, &dquo;movement&dquo; refers to visual conventions of the

fixed-plane (point) perspective, while motion refers to a
simultaneous multifaceted visual exploration of the perceived
phenomenon. Television news film uses the fixed-plane per-
spective, and TV newsmen, apparently following visual con-
ventions handed down from the Renaissance, view vision in

Figure 4: FRAMES WITH CAMERA RELOCATED

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motion as distortion. Like altering camera speed, it is to be

avoided.
It might appear that this extended discussion of movement
and motion has merely affirmed that television news film is
always representational. Yet, other representational films,
especially post-World-War-II European films, explicitly incor-
porate motion. Consider, for instance, a scene of countryside, as
seen from a car, in which the film simultaneously incorporates
both horizontal and vertical movement, in which the film
appears to bob up and down with the movement of the car
through vertical and horizontal space. Or imagine sequences of
what a person sees when walking down an uneven cobblestone
street: the camera bounces with the man’s strides. Such
cinematic sequences may be said to incorporate vision in
motion, because they involve at least two geometric planes.
Discussing camera placement, I noted that newsmen may
avoid head-on perspective when photographing action se-
quences, if using that perspective would result in jumpy film.
When a television newsman uses the word jumpy in this
context, he is referring to film that captures movement in both
the horizontal and vertical planes as those planes move through
time in a nonsynchronized manner. That is, the newsman is
discussing vision in motion.

Figure 5: THE PATH OF CAMERA MOVEMENT

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Figure 6: THE FIXED PLANE OF CAMERA MOVEMENT

When a television newsman is filming from inside a slowly

moving car, he will have someone else steer so that he can hold
the camera steady and avoid vision in motion. (If someone is
not available to steer the car, the cameraman will walk and film
simultaneously, being careful to hold the camera &dquo;steady.&dquo;) If
he inadvertently captures vision in motion and the offending
frames cannot be deleted in the cutting room, he expects to be
scolded. The bias against vision in motion is so strong that
newsmcn tend to interpret an event as more newsworthy if the
film captures movement in two planes. For instance, film
smuggled out of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was jumpy,
breaking with the fixed-plane perspective. Watching the film on
the network evening news, the observed newsmen interpreted
this as meaning that the film was &dquo;really terrific&dquo; and
&dquo;dangerous&dquo; to take, because the experienced Czechoslovakian
cameraman &dquo;couldn’t even hold the camera steady.&dquo; For them,

breaking with the accepted technique, in this context, height-

ened the film’s already great news value, especially because the

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 [15]

jumpiness was not &dquo;caused&dquo; by the shoving of competing

newsmen.

NEWS FlLMAND ROLE DEFINlTlON

Thus far, I have argued that distortion is a sociocultural

construct, that different cultures interpret vision and the
perceived object in different ways. Accordingly, as frequently
noted, the fine linguistic distinctions used by Eskimos to typify
snow may be seen as a personification of their social conception

of snow and of their socially meaningful visual perceptions.

From this point of view, instead of calling vision in motion
&dquo;distortion,&dquo; one might view it as an alternative set of visual
conventions, the valid attribution of social meaning to a visual
field. Thus, when one states that TV newsmen condemn
distortion, one is stating that the newsmen prefer one set of
visual conventions to another and that the newsmen attribute
social meanings to the techniques they cast aside.
This section discusses another convention. By examining the
use of camera range, it suggests that television news film

incorporates patterned role relationships.

The Camera Range Convention:

Be Neither Intimate nor Distant

Range is achieved by the arrangement of horizontal and

vertical planes to suggest height, width, and depth. Drawing
upon the work of Grosser, a portrait painter, Hall (1966)
attributes social meaning to this arrangement. He describes four
categories of space and their social meanings. One of these is
public space, defined by Grosser’s statement that bodies
perceived from more than thirteen feet away are seen &dquo;as
something having little connection with ourselves.&dquo;’ Hall’s
other classifications are social distance (four to twelve feet),
personal distance (one and one-half to four feet) and intimate
distance (zero to eighteen inches). Each is divided into a &dquo;close&dquo;
and &dquo;far&dquo; phase whose usage in our culture Hall describes.

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Figure 7: HALL’S DISTANCES ON A TELEVISION SCREEN

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Hall (1966: 112-113) suggests, at close personal distance,

&dquo;one can hold or grasp the other person.... A wife can stay
inside the circle of her husband’s personal zone with impunity.
For another woman to do so is an entirely different story.&dquo;
One way of expressing the far phase of personal distance is
&dquo;keeping someone at arm’s length away.... It extends from a
point that is just outside easy touching distance by one person
to a point where two people can touch fingers if they extend
both arms.... Subjects of personal interest and involvement
can be discussed at this distance&dquo; (Hall, 1966: 113). Far

personal distance melts into close social distance; &dquo;impersonal

business occurs at this distance, and in the close phase there is
more involvement than in the far phase. People who work

together tend to use close social distance&dquo; (1966: 114). Far

social distance is &dquo;the distance to which people move when
someone says, ’stand away so I can look at you.’ Business and
social discourse conducted at the far end of social distance has a
more formal character than if it occurs inside the close phase
[of social distance ] &dquo; ( 1966 : 115). In sum, Hall suggests that
different distances have different social meanings; more specifi-
cally, he implies that patterned role relationships are expressed
through physical distance.’
The newsmen’s use of social distance conforms to Hall’s
descriptions, sketched in Figure 7 as they would appear on a
television screen. Of these six possible framings, three are
commonly found in television news film. These are far personal
distance, close social distance, and far social distance which,
according to Hall, are used in our culture for discussions ranging
from &dquo;personal interest and involvement&dquo; to more formal
&dquo;business and social talks.&dquo; I shall refer to these three as
&dquo;talking distance&dquo; and to close personal distance and intimate
distance as &dquo;touching distance.&dquo;
The meanings that newsmen attribute to talking and touching
distance are demonstrated by considering frame arrangements
rarely found on television news presentations. In screen A of
Figure 8, the subject is framed according to customary
television close-up technique. In screen B, the subject is framed
according to movie close-up technique. Both screens present a

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[18]

Figure8: ALTERNATIVE CLOSE-UP FRAMES

&dquo;talking head,&dquo; the newsmen’s term for film showing someone

speaking. By providing a greater distance between the camera
lens (viewer) and the subject, screen A is supposedly more
objective, for, being farther away, it literally seems more
detached. &dquo;Coming in tight&dquo; on the talking head, as screen B
does, is not seen as objective. In movies, the framing sketched in
screen B is used to capture moments of drama that newsmen do
not associate with &dquo;straight, hard objective news.&dquo; As my key
cameraman-informant explained, screen B would be used for
dramatic impact when someone with an &dquo;interesting face&dquo; was
expressing emotion. As an example, he gave Rose Kennedy
discussing her dead sons, suggesting he would come in on her
face and try to capture a tear.8 However, he volunteered, he
would absolutely never use that range-technique on the talking
heads of reporters. Indeed, when-to compensate for a previous
error in the filming-one unfortunate cameraman framed a TV

reporter in touching distance, his work was scornfully dis-

paraged. As newsmen, television reporters must be shown as
nonparticipants, whose role is to comment and describe
objectively. The camera may not suggest that the TV newsmen
have emotions or ideas about the story they are reporting, that
the reporters get &dquo;too close.&dquo;
Public distance is all but forbidden to record events involving
&dquo;individuals,&dquo; even though those events may normally be seen
from a public distance. One might suppose that television news
film could use &dquo;public distance&dquo; to gain viewers the experience

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 [19]

of having attended an event or speech. This is supposed to be

objective, because, theoretically, it would decrease the emo-
tional involvement between viewer and speaker. However,
public distance precludes the personal and social contact which
are the hallmark of television news: public distance deperson-
alizes. It is only used to show masses, not individuals. Since
news portrays individuals involved in events (as symbolic

portrayals of those events) and individuals’ opinions about

events, the use of public distance is &dquo;unnewslike.&dquo; Furthermore,
public distance greatly limits the ability of news film to capture
emotions. As Hall (1966: 117) points out, &dquo;Most actors know
that at thirty or more feet, the subtle shades of meaning
conveyed by the normal voice are lost, as are the details of
facial expression and movement.&dquo; Recording at public distance,
the film might gain an exaggerated objectivity, but it would lose
the other central characteristic of television news film-in-
volving impact upon emotions.’
Needless to say, specific usages of talking distance depend
upon who is talking. Anchormen and commentators appear in
standard torso shots, emphasizing their head and shoulders and
initially including their hands holding the program script. The
television newsmen try to project friendliness with their
audience through this framing and to maintain objectivity by
keeping the torso framing standard throughout a sequence of
stories. The head and shoulders of a newsmaker, whether he or
she is a mayor, senator, or secretary, may be similarly framed or
presented at a greater distance from the camera lens (varying
between Hall’s far personal and close social distance). All
newsmakers are presented from the same distance or com-
bination of distances, again connoting objective presentation.
The TV anchorman, TV commentators, and newsmakers may
be portrayed in a tighter shot than the TV newsman at the
scene of a story. He appears in close social or far social distance.
When he is interviewing a newsmaker and is standing, at least his
torso appears. More frequently and as a general rule, the
newsman is portrayed standing in front of all event, first filmed
surrounded by space and then from the waist up. The event in
the background is shown at &dquo;depersonalizing&dquo; public distance.

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This reporter is &dquo;farther&dquo; from the camera lens and viewer than
either the anchorman or the newsmaker. This technique
includes the events in the background and shows the reporter
detached from the event and not part of it.
To the newsmen, the distinction between cinematic detach-
ment and participation connotes objectivity. After all, a movie
hero would be shown acting in the crowd despite the extent to
which such a shot might initially block the viewer’s clear
identification of him. The movie director would want to
portray the hero acting with others to show his involvement, in
contrast with the uninvolved reporter.’ ° This technique was the
first learned by a newspaper reporter hired in spite of a lack of
television experience. Editing his film, the technicians told him
before the editors could, &dquo;next time you cover a story like this,
stand in front of the picketers.&dquo;
In sum, television news film of &dquo;straight objective stories&dquo;
incorporates Hall’s notion that different social distances have
different social meanings. The film expresses patterned role
relationships, and, through the adoption of certain techniques,
it suggests that television newsmen are reporting objectively.

THE FEA TURE STOR Y

Throughout this discussion, I have claimed that certain film

techniques, associated with sociocultural definitions of visual
phenomena or with patterned role relationships, are used by
the television newsman to convey objectivity. On the basis of
the argument presented thus far, one may state that TV
newsmen eschew distortion and recognize the social meaning of

spatial and temporal arrangements. Yet, the consistent use of

the term &dquo;objectivity&dquo; implies that the newsmen view objec-
tivity as the antithesis of distortion. While such an antithesis
may be correct linguistic usage, it remains to be established that
the TV newsmen use &dquo;distortion&dquo; and &dquo;objectivity&dquo; as cine-
matic antitheses. This section establishes that usage.
Both TV and ink newsmen insistently distinguish between
straight, objective news stories and feature stories. Although, as

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I have argued elsewhere (Tuchma·~, 1973), this distinction is

largely based upon the work rhythm of the news organization,
newsmen insist that news stories should be objective, while
feature stories need not. Significantly, when filming feature
stories, TV newsmen defy all the technical guidelines that I have
described.
For instance, the feature story may &dquo;play&dquo; with the body of
the reporter. In one feature story, a reporter commented on the
rerouting of traffic around a congested city square. The city had
erected a maze of signs, including &dquo;one way,&dquo; &dquo;bear to right,&dquo;
&dquo;bear to left,&dquo; and &dquo;do not enter&dquo; as well as a plethora of
markers indicating the direction toward specific streets. The
reporter appeared in the opening of the story, and, as he talked,
signs and cars appeared on the TV screen forming a jumble of
images (vision in motion). Suddenly, the camera focused on one
large sign, and the reporter’s head popped from behind it as he
stated, &dquo;This is Pat Trenton from Maywood Square for Channel
1 News.&dquo; The closing of another feature story, this one on an
electronic music concert, broke rules by framing the reporter at
intimate distance and using the worm’s eye perspective. The
reporter’s head was also bathed in green light.
On another occasion, the TV team did a feature story about
the city’s red light zone, a section with cheap movie houses,
&dquo;nonacademic bookstores&dquo; and bars with dancing frequented
by a variety of &dquo;deviants,&dquo; among others. As part of the feature,
the newsmen filmed feet walking down the street without
focusing upon the &dquo;bodies&dquo; attached to the feet. Dancing inside
one of the bars was filmed in silhouette, partially so that faces

could not be identified (as the male cameraman explained, a

wife would not then spy her husband, who had supposedly been
working late), but primarily for the photographic effect of
people dancing in a dark room to the noise of hard rock and
background conversation.
&dquo;Distortion&dquo; involving special lighting effects and music was
used in other features. The observed station did a Christmas
feature about tree lights and bells, the sound track carrying bells
pealing a Christmas tune. Neither the lights nor the bells

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[22]

featured in the visual image were in clear focus. On the screen,

they appeared as diffuse shapes and colors moving in an
organized whirl synchronized to music. The cameraman’s
description of his work is most pertinent here. Talking about
range and perspective shots, he had used the word distortion,
stating that news film &dquo;never, never, never&dquo; used lighting and
distortion such as that incorporated in the swimming pool scene
of the then current movie &dquo;The Graduate.&dquo; Yet, when I
mentioned the Christmas bells-and-lights feature, he replied,
&dquo;That’s different! &dquo;’ ’1
The list of feature stories that disregard described news
techniques could be extended indefinitely. But it is more
pertinent simply to note that (I ) newsmen feel straight news
stories should be objective, but feature stories need not; and (2)
drawing upon cultural definitions governing visual perceptions
and patterned role expectations, TV newsmen use previously
described techniques to film straight news stories, and they
frequently disregard those techniques when filming feature
stories. Logically, one may infer that TV newsmen use the word
distortion as the cinematic antithesis of objectivity and are
aware of the social meaning of the techniques they incorporate
in their work.

INTERPRETING SURVEY FINDINGS

The association of camera techniques with cultural defi-

nitions and patterned role relationships has at least one
implication for research on mass communications. With a
consistency almost unnerving to the sociologist aware of the
extent to which television cameras construct a reality, national
surveys continue to report that Americans, faced with con-
flicting media reports of the same event, are &dquo;most inclined to
believe&dquo; television news reports (Roper Organization, Inc.,
1971).&dquo;2 Apparently and frequently mistakenly, &dquo;seeing is
believing.&dquo;
Television news presentations lend themselves to acceptance
of this everyday dictum, because a television presentation

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entails more dimensions of than either newspapers

perception
relegated to the written word, radio programs bound to spoken
presentations, or magazine formats wedded to the written word
and the still photograph. On television, the viewer can &dquo;judge&dquo;
most or all of these dimensions at the same time, with the
added benefit of moving films. A man’s facial expressions as he
makes a statement may seem to serve as a check upon his
commitment to his views. Furthermore, some television viewers
who regularly watch a specific news program, identify as a
friend the news announcer who enters their home and insist
that &dquo;Tom Jones of Channel 1 &dquo; tells the truth. That television
news presentations are therefore held up to be more credible
than news presentations of other media is certainly not
surprising. Nor is it surprising that viewers ignore the socio-
logical dictum that the &dquo;facts never speak for themselves.&dquo;
However, these explanations do not suffice. In the last few
years, television news has been under repeated attack from both
governmental and nonofficial sources, particularly radical and
reactionary political groups. The Presidential Commission on
Civil Disorders scored some media practices. Agnew launched an
attack upon television news in the name of &dquo;middle America.&dquo;
Mass media magazines pointed to television’s ability to con-
struct the news in the cutting room. Others, picking up on Lang
and Lang’s (1953) early suggestion that live telecasts may not
&dquo;accurately&dquo; telecast an event, pointed to the ability of
television personnel to decide which parts of an event might be
excluded from the film frame.
Given these criticisms, why do more Americans place greater
faith in television news reports than in the reports of other news
media? Certainly, one explanation is that many citizens reject
the criticisms and attacks on television news. Another and more
powerful explanation is inherent in the techniques used in
television news film. As previously discussed, whenever possible
-and it is almost always possible-television news film records
events and interviews in a manner consistent with &dquo;visual
objectivity&dquo; and it arranges space to give the impression of a
business conversation between colleagues. That is, the frames of
film telecast more than closely resemble the visual perceptions

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[24]

of an American in a specific type of everyday interaction. It is

possible that by recreating these conditions of everyday life,
television news film masks from the viewer the extent to which
newsmen may and must manipulate film.
One may hypothesize that Americans &dquo;trust&dquo; television news
more than news disseminated by other media, not because

&dquo;seeing is believing,&dquo; but rather because viewers are seeing

events and interviews filmed in a specific way, a way that draws
upon taken-for-granted cultural definitions of visual perception
and patterned role expectations concerning the use of space.
One might even suppose that television news film constructs
reality to match everyday conditions of multidimensional
perception and so maintains greater credibility than other media
restricted to reproducing events through one or two dimensions
of perception. However, such a possibility is highly speculative.
It requires confirmation from carefully controlled studies of
viewers’ reactions to news stories filmed by both objective and
nonobjective techniques.

NOTES

1. The term "newsman" is unfortunately accurate. Except for a span of several

weeks-the tenure of a woman as coanchorperson on one news program-I was
invariably the only woman in the newsroom.
2. Film taken of an event is called "actuality" film.
3. It may be difficult to eliminate the implication of tenderness from slow
motion film. Appearing on a made-for-television short, the director of "Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" discussed the filming in slow motion of a scene in
which the "heroes" kill for the first time. Originally, the scene was shot from several
angles. The director had planned to intercut these takes. But he could not use the
intercut sequence: it was too beautiful and ballet-like.
4. Also, the camera may be placed to give a limited view of the action. Clearly,
news film eschews a limited view of an action, for news film aims "to capture

accurately" an event. Although it has been suggested that TV news film may show a
limited view of an action, giving the "wrong" impression of what happened, as in the
telecasting of MacArthur Day (Lang and Lang, 1953) or of riots (National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968: 363), newsmen claim to have recorded the
crucial events.
5. The governor sat behind a desk on a raised podium. A platform near the back
of the room was provided for television news cameras. From the platform,
cameramen could shoot over the heads of reporters seated below and also record the

governor from a head-on perspective.

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One might counter that a film frame of a man sitting behind a desk represents a
variation on this perspective, because the desk is in fixed space and thereby
influences camera placement. However, the cameraman retains the power to
rearrange space for his own purposes, including his use of the appropriate perspective.
He may alter the spatial relationship between the desk and the desk chair, rearrange
items on the desk top, or choose to film the newsmaker sitting in an armchair, rather
than at his desk. He may suggest the angle at which the newsmaker faces the camera
and point toward which the newsmaker directs his eyes. Having exercised this power,
the cameraman frequently lowers his tripod to make sure the sitting person will be
filmed in a head-on perspective.
6. According to Grosser (in Hall, 1966: 71-72), "At more than thirteen feet
away ... the human figure can be seen in its entirety as a single whole. At this
distance ... we are chiefly aware of its outlines and proportions.... The painter can
look at his model as if he were a tree in a landscape or an apple in a still life. But four
to eight feet is the portrait distance.... The painter is near enough so that his eyes
have no trouble in understanding the sitter’s solid forms, yet he is far enough away so
that the foreshortening of the forms presents no real problem. Here, at the normal
distance of social intimacy and easy conversation, the sitter’s soul begins to
appear.... Nearer than three feet, within touching distance, the soul is far too much
in evidence for any sort of disinterested observation."
7. Diana Warshay reports in a personal communication a student project
involving patterned role relationships expressed through physical distance. The
student, a white male probation officer, sat on a rolling desk chair in a room marked
off into nine-inch squares. He slowly moved toward his clients, noting the distances
involved and watching their reactions. He was able to move closer to women and to
black men than to white men before the client began to send defensive signals.
8. As the cameraman noted, Rose Kennedy "occupies a special place" in the
"hearts of Americans." It is possible that this convention is disappearing, for New
York television newscasts have occasionally been showing newsmakers framed in
touching distance. The incidents have been few and far between, and it is impossible
to know the conditions under which the film was shot.
9. Conversely, intimate distance captures emotions at the cost of objectivity.
10. When newsmen break the association of patterned role relationships with
camera range by getting involved in an event, other newsmen consider it newsworthy.
One example of this is John Chancellor’s hasty exit from the 1964 Democratic
Convention. He spoke on the air as he was carried out of the hall.
11. This cameraman preferred to film feature stories, because "you can do more"
cinematically than is permissible with hard news stories.
12. The question, asked in 1959, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1967, 1968, and 1971, was,
"If you got conflicting or different reports of the same news story from radio,
television, the magazines and the newspapers, which of the four versions would you
be most inclined to believe-the one on radio or television or magazines or
newspapers?" Except for 1959, when 32% responded "newspapers," the modal
answer was "television." The percentage of people answering "television" increased
from 29% in 1959 to 49% in 1971, while the answer "newspapers" decreased from
32% in 1959 to 20% in 1971. Throughout the entire period, television was cited least
often in the response to the converse question, "Which of the four versions would
you be least inclined to believe?" The percentage answering "television" varied from
5 to 9%; answering "newspapers," from 24 to 30%.

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A Louis
Time- Harris poll in 1969 (Time, 1969: 39) found, "While a majority
believes that newspapers are ’sometimes unfair and slanted in news coverage,’ only a
minority of one in three sees television news this way." According to Newsweek
(1970: 59), a Gallup poll found, two months after Agnew’s attack on the media, that
40% of the respondents believed television news "deals fairly with all sides in
presenting news dealing with political and social issues," and 35% believed this to be
true of newspapers. Slightly more people believed that newspapers "tend to favor one
side" (45%) than believed this of television (42%), although respondents made
"apparently no distinction between news and editorial pages of newspapers."
Two polls taken by the Opinion Research Center for TV Guide (Hickey, 1972;
Youman, 1972) support the Roper data. The question asked was, "Which of these
media do you think is the fairest and most objective in its political reporting and
coverage?" and included the same four media as options. Forty-seven percent
answered "television" on the first survey; 53% on the second. The percentage
answering "newspapers" was 18% and 15%, respectively. However, O.R.C. qualified
the results finding (Hickey, 1972: 8): "waning confidence in TV news the further
one departs from simple life-styles. College-trained, professional people, big-city

dwellers, Easterners, amd higher-wage earners are far less convinced of television’s
preeminent right to be called ’the fairest and most objective’ news medium." In both
the O.R.C. and Roper studies, the percentage answering either "magazines" or
"radio" was appreciably smaller than those expressing confidence in either television
or newspapers.

REFERENCES

FISCHER, J. L. (1961) "Art styles as cultural cognitive maps." Amer. Anthro-

63: 79-93.
pologist
HALL, E. (1966) The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
HICKEY, N. (1972) "What America thinks of TV’s political coverage." TV Guide
(April 8-14): 6-11.
LANG, K. and G. E. LANG (1953) "The unique perspective of television." Amer.
Soc. Rev. 18: 3-12.
MOHOLY-NAGY, L. (1965) Vision in Motion. Chicago: Paul Theobald.
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968) Report. New York:
Bantam.
Newsweek (1970) "Divided Opinion." (January 19): 59.
Roper Organization, Inc. (1971) An Extended View of Public Attitudes Toward
Television and Other Mass Media 1959-1971. New York: Television Information
Office.
Time (1969) "Judging the fourth estate: a Time-Louis Harris Poll." (September 5):
38-39.
TUCHMAN, G. (1973) "Making news by doing work: routinizing the unexpected."
Amer. J. of Sociology 78.
(1972) "Objectivity as strategic ritual: an examination of newsmen’s notions of
———

objectivity." Amer. J. of Sociology 78: 660-679.

YOUMAN, R. (1972) "What does America think now?" TV Guide (September
3-October 6): A-1-A-4.

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