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letter to the editor
I was disappointed to read Lord Puttnam’s negative comments about 24-hour news in the December issue of ACADEMY magazine.
His views on media ownership and diversity are well known and he is, of course, entitled to them but I think his comments about rolling news and the thinly-veiled attack on Sky News are deeply unfair and based more on what he suspects Sky News of being, rather than what it actually is.
He is not correct when he talks of ‘the refusal to thoughtfully interro- gate and contextualise events as they happen.’ Anyone who has watched Sky News over the past few years will have seen the effort and resource that we put in not only to report events in the UK and around the world but to explain, interpret and analyse them as well.
We have led the way in developing numerous production tech- niques now in use on other UK and international channels. Many of those techniques were specifically introduced for the purpose of help- ing to put events into context and to explain their background.
We can and do give a very wide range of opinion on all matters of public interest. We do not restrict those views to ones that might follow any pre-set agenda. Our fairness and editorial integrity has been strongly praised by regulators and in independent surveys of viewers’ opinions.
Moreover, we have specifically been singled out for praise from the regulators for our even-handed coverage of matters involving the com- mercial interests of News Corporation.
There is no ‘erosion of impartiality’. Sky News is strictly regulated, by the ITC and BSC, and in future by Ofcom, in matters of fairness, bal- ance, and accuracy. That regulation is applied as firmly to us as it is to ITV, ITN or any other commercial channel (and a lot more firmly than that applied to the BBC in my opinion, but that is another story). We have an exemplary record of compliance.
His proposed tests of plurality include ‘...a commitment to the impar- tial presentation of news and factual programming...’ and ‘...a bal- anced and accurate presentation of the news and the free expression of opinion...’
Sky News already abides by those principles and has done so for the past fifteen years. I have been in this business long enough to know that if we were in any way falling short of those ideals those who are ill- disposed to us would be only too quick to point out our failings to the public, the media and the regulators. The fact that that has not hap- pened speaks volumes in my view.
So too does the list of awards won by Sky News, in the face of fierce competition from our rivals at BBC and ITN: two BAFTAS, eight RTS news awards, more than a dozen medals at the New York Television Festival and many others, all in the space of the past six years.
The arguments about ownership, plurality and diversity are for other people and other times, but I believe Lord Puttnam’s comments about rolling news and his implied criticism of Sky News are unfair and unfounded. In my view, we have every reason to be proud of our past and confident about our future.
Nick Pollard
Head of Sky News
Although there is no regular Letters page in ACADEMY, we welcome correspondence in response to articles we have featured. The Editor reserves the right to ensure material is suitable for publication.
obituaries
news digest
LesHodgson,AMPS
es Hodgson, who has died aged 78, was the doyen of British sound editors.
In a long and admired career he worked for some of the great- est and most demanding direc- tors, like Stanley Kubrick, John Huston, Ronald Neame, Franco Zeffirelli, Fred Zinnemann and Francis Coppola.
The son of a documentary cam- eraman, Hodgson started work in 1942 as an assistant editor before joining Gainsborough Studios after the war as a sound editor.
In 1956 came Moby Dick, the first of many assignments for Huston, including Heaven Knows, Mr Allison, Night Of The Iguana, The Bible, Reflections In A Golden Eye, The Kremlin Letter, The Man Who Would Be King and Escape To Victory.
Among his other notable credits were Tunes Of Glory, Dr Strangelove, Romeo And Juliet and Julia, which earned him the Guild of British Film Editors’ Best Sound Editing Award. It was also given for his “Contribution to the Art”.
On Julia, he met Walter Murch in what proved a long-lasting friendship which took him, first, to the States to work on the Oscar- winning Apocalypse Now, before being asked to collaborate on Murch’s own directorial debut, Return To Oz, back home at Elstree.
In more recent years he was supervising sound editor on films like A Good Man In Africa and Mr. Johnson, at first assisted by his daughter Catherine, who has gone on to become an award-winning sound editor in her own right.
In 2002, he was awarded a rare Fellowship of the Association of Motion Picture Sound, of which he’d been a Founder Member and whose Council he served on for several years.
RAay Stark
lthough he never officially ran a studio, producer Ray Stark was long one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.
The son-in-law of entertainer Fanny Brice, it was perhaps inevitable that among his impres- sive filmography was Funny Girl and its sequel, Funny Lady, both of which starred Barbra Streisand as Brice.
At Seven Arts then Rastar – during which time he built up his stock and influence at Columbia – Stark, a one-time agent, pro- duced films like Fat City, Annie and Steel Magnolias.
His most fertile collaboration was with writer Neil Simon spawn- ing no fewer than 11 films includ- ing The Goodbye Girl, California Suite and Biloxi Blues. He was 89.
Ann Miller
rguably the faster dancer in the business (500 taps a minute, it was said) Ann Miller was one of MGM’s jewels in musicals like Easter Parade, On The Town and, most memorably, Kiss Me Kate.
As the long-legged, vivacious Bianca, she sang and danced her way sensationally through Berlin numbers such as ‘From This Moment On’, ‘Why Can’t You Behave?’ and ‘Too Darn Hot’.
Though she would claim she was never a star, she somehow always managed to steal the show. On stage and screen from the early 30s, her last movie appearance was in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. She was 80.
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