Producing Public Television, Producing Public Culture PDF
Preview Producing Public Television, Producing Public Culture
PRODUCING PUBLIC TELEVISION, PRODUCING PUBLIC CULTURE PRODUCING PUBLIC TELEVISION, PRODUCING PUBLIC CULTURE Barry Dornfeld P R I N C E T ON U N I V E R S I TY P R E SS P R I N C E T O N, N EW J E R S EY Copyright © 1998 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dornfeld, Barry, 1958- Producing public television, producing public culture / Barry Dornfeld. p. cm. Filmography: p. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-04468-6 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-691-04467-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Documentary television programs—Production and direction. 2. Public television. I. Title. PN1992.8.D6D69 1998 791.45'75—dc21 97-39819 This book has been composed in Times Roman Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources http://pup.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America P For my mother, Ina Gene Feidelman, and in memory of my father, Lionel Allen Dornfeld One feels, really, that two great gods, Entertainment and Education, have risen up, and this in a way is okay, is the way things are, but they have kept out all the other, lesser gods: the gods of Wit and Unprofessionalism, the nasty gods, the gods that get into noisy arguments, the dissenting gods (David Susskind is not a dissenting god), the gods that say things in bad taste and recite poems and do things for the hell of it; the gods that exist in this "larger world" that television is always claiming to bring us—which still exists in books and magazines but does not exist in television, because the air is not really available to everyone, and because it apparently costs so much to put together the equipment for broadcasting through it that one requires of those great modern American institutions, a giant Commercial Network Television Establishment, or a giant National Educational Television Establishment, but in either case an establishment, to run the show. (Michael Arlen, Living Room War, 1969:32) I think there is one huge problem that faces us and is common to virtually all series. One has to bear in mind the awful fact that most television is second rate. The examples that we have on television are visually wallpaper, and usually have very little to do with the arguments that are advanced. So the arguments outstrip the ability of television to demonstrate it properly. So it's easy to think of the right arguments; it's very, very difficult to visualize it and to express it in such a way that it is truly illuminating on the screen. And I think the problem is not to think of the arguments or the causes, but to try and work out how we can illuminate it or actually get it on to the screen. That is the large problem. It's hugely difficult and there is no way around it. (Peter Montagnon, one of Childhood's two executive producers, December 12, 1989) Contents Acknowledgments ix Chapter One Studying Public Television as American Public Culture 3 Chapter Two Childhood on the Contested Territory of Public Television in 35 the United States Chapter Three Negotiating Documentary Production: Authorship and Imagined 61 Audiences Chapter Four Public Television Documentary Poetics 89 Chapter Five Cutting across Cultures: Public Television Documentary and 140 Representations of Otherness Chapter Six Public Television Documentary and the Mediation of 168 American Public Culture Appendix A Organizational Chart of the Childhood Staff 189 Appendix B List of Academic Observers and Advisors 191 Appendix C Synopsis of the Childhood Series 193 Notes 197 References 221 Filmography 234 Index 237
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