Broadcast letters issue 13 June 2008

Leave our passionate lawyers alone

I am pleased that your correspondent last week (Broadcast letters, 06.06.08) congratulates Channel 4 and Five for the production of the Independent Producers' Handbook and recognises that there is a training issue for both broadcasters and the independent production sector. I believe that the Handbook will be a really valuable tool for television production at a time when serious concerns have been raised.

I am, of course, unclear as to the television experience of your anonymous correspondent, but it seems to me he or she doesn't know C4's legal department very well. Without exception, our lawyers have always been passionately supportive of C4's output and do a fantastic job in ensuring that it is the home of brave, challenging and thought-provoking TV. I'm sure that sentiment is echoed by the hundreds of C4 producers who continue to benefit from our legal team's expert advice and guidance.
Julian Bellamy
Head of programmes, Channel 4

Professionalism please on camera
In what read like the treatment for Confessions of a Television Cameraman, journalist Daisy Aycliffe recently described in the Guardian (05/06/08) how she went about filming Michael O'Leary's recent Ryanair press conference.

She relates how her "dilapidated and wonky tripod" gave viewers the impression that Mr O'Leary was delivering the press conference standing on a hill. She was pressed for time and had to leave the annual results press conference early. As she recalls, she then "clambered on all fours to retrieve my microphone, trying desperately not to interrupt those journalists still at work."

Mr O'Leary - not known for being politically correct - made a remark about her being on her knees in front of him. She recounts that he said: "If you want to stay on your knees, by all means I'd encourage you. Sorry I've forgotten the question... there was a very pretty girl on her knees in-front of me." Aycliffe was, rightly, outraged.

As professional television cameramen, we condemn any element of sexism in this comment - it's taken us far too long to make producers understand that not only men can work as camera operators - but, frankly, as a 62-year-old wrinkly cameraman, had I behaved in the same way, I would have expected similar sarcastic retribution.

As cameramen we owe it to our viewers to produce viewable pictures and that includes levelling the tripod. We also owe it to our colleagues, the people we're filming, and our viewers, not to interrupt an ongoing press conference. It's called professionalism.

As a guild, somewhat reluctantly, we accept video journalists have a role to play in the world of cost-cutting television. However, what we don't accept is that this must inevitably lead to a fall in either quality or behaviour.
Brian Rose
Chairman, The Guild of Television Cameramen