Brian Winston Reads the TV News (1983)
This live show features the energetic analysis of television network news by Brian Winston. Winston looks at the news as a unique institution, governed by its own conventions and constraints. How does the news use pictures, body language, narrative, and dream logic? What is its role in setting the social agenda of the nation? Tune in to find out. As a film-maker and journalist, Winston's appraisal of the U.S. evening news illustrates how corporate visual media is used to format a predetermined depiction of reality which is then edited and disseminated for our consumption. The idea that the nightly news is "holding the nation together" is explored as well as other themes such as "journalistic intervention" and state sponsored propaganda. A must see for all media activists. Brian Winston is the first Lincoln Chair of Communications at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He is a former dean of the College of Communications at Penn State University and former chair of cinema studies at New York University. He was also the director of the Center for Journalism Studies at the University of Wales College of Cardiff. He has worked on television current affairs and features and as a print journalist. He is a communications scholar, journalist, Emmy award-winning documentary scriptwriter and author of "Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries" and is known for being one of the first to write on the subject of documentary and ethics.