News programmes

broadcast

live broadcast

recording recorded

footage

dramatic footage

clip

vox-pop interview

talking heads

We showed the Channel 4 bosses this four-minute clip of me interviewing Nelson Mandela and they really liked it, you know, particularly the fact that we were doing it all live.

The programme will feature dramatic footage of the Chernobyl disaster, some not released before, as well as live performances by international artists.

Even worse, I discovered the New Year awards show was pre-recorded, so it was probably just a bit of old Big Ben footage filmed one summer's evening to set the scene.

Our Eastern European correspondent, Diana Goodman in Prague, has recorded vox pops with Czech voters who say they are supporting Civic Forum.

It was also the evening of talking heads interviewing talking heads. Studio presenters spoke to giant TV screens worldwide.

4 All the news that fits. Match the two parts of these extracts.

1 Down the coast the town of Alasio has an average of 400,000 visitors a year,

2 'I am becoming Death, a destroyer of worlds,' said Robert Oppenheimer in an old clip,

3 The BBC does make mistakes and the reaction story it broadcast after the Conservatives' health debate was one of them.

4 The old footage was fascinating enough,

5 The pope's blessing 'Urbi et Orbi' to the City of Rome and to the world

6 South African writer Nadine Gordimer reading from her novel A Sport of Nature about being a writer in a repressive society.

7 The Rugby Football Union was asked to study a video

a without the help of talking heads.

b That clip was from an interview recorded in 1987 for National Public Radio.

с was broadcast live in 50 countries.

d adding sadly,'I guess we all felt that, at one time or another.'

e recording of events leading up to the punch of the season.

f It consisted of vox-pop interviews of health workers who disliked government policy.

g and TV-footage of black waves can only spell disaster.

The sound-bite and the photo-opportunity

photo- opportunity

sound-bite

photogenic

telegenic

The shrinking of the average sound-bite (extract from presidential candidate's speech) used in TV news may already have stopped. Studies show that sound-bites shrank from 45 seconds in 1968 to 15 in 1984 and 9.8 in 1988. At that rate they will have disappeared altogether before the election in 2000.

In the general state of unreality which we have entered, it is now thought that you can solve everything by photo-opportunity — that if the president signs a transportation bill standing on a road in Texas, it's better than signing it in the White House because it denotes something.

Elizabeth Taylor was not just a photogenic face but also had strengths as a dramatic actress.

In determining the choice of candidates, was it a case of the more telegenic they were, the more chance they had of success?

5 Age of the Sound-Bite. Read this article from The Times and answer the questions. (The Beltway is an area outside Washington where many people involved in politics live).

Blaming the Beltway

American campaign politics remains, to the European observer, curiously old-fashioned. The big rally, the visits to every state, the glad-handing and the baby-kissing, the silly hats and balloons all seem to hark back to the days when candidates bellowed their promises from the backs of railway carriages.

To this more recently has been added the photo-opportunity and the sound-bite, both attuned to the needs of television and the press. Both are easily stage-managed. The scene can be visited in advance and the one-liner prepared in advance, to be parroted at every stop.

Even the most risky encounters, studio interviews and debates, are pre-packaged, with 'hosts', chairmen and journalists set to cross-examine the candidates on subjects agreed in advance. The topics are those in common currency. The result is bland and unappetising. Like watching grand-prix racing, the thrill lies in the possibility of an accident.

1 Given the context, if one thing harks back to another, is it a) similar to it or b) different from it?

2 If you bellow, do you a) shout very loud, or b) whisper?

3 If something is attuned to the needs of something else, does it answer those needs?

4 What can be stage-managed, apart from sound-bites and photo-opportunities?

5 What expression is used here instead of sound-bite to mean the same thing?

6 If you parrot something, do you sound as if you believe it?

7 Is bland food tasty?

8 Does thrill mean a) boredom or b) excitement?