DAVID GUILBAULT

GOOD REVIEWS

The documentary I worked on for four years for Diversity Films made its Oscar-qualifying public run in LA and NY this past week.  It got good reviews in the Los Angeles Times and This Week in New York websites.  It's called "Why Us? Left Behind and Dying" and looks at why the HIV/AIDS epidemic is hitting the Black community so hard.

RIGHT ON CRONKITE

The New York Times' Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich has it exactly right about the importance of Walter Cronkite in his piece, "And That's Not the Way It Is."

"What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. ...

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank."

- Frank Rich, The New York Times

EDITORS, NOT AUDITORS

"There are things wrong, with probably the most obvious manifestation being the tabloidization of too much of our work. Mainline journalism seems to have accepted the standards of what once was known as the penny press. It is to worry.

And, of course, the bottom line of our discomfort is the bottom line itself.

With almost total unanimity, our big, corporate owners, infected with the greed that marks the end of the 20th Century, stretch constantly for ever-increasing profit, condemning quality to take the hindmost. If there is any solution to this problem it might be found in educating the share-holding public to their responsibility in owning this business which is fundamental to the preservation of our democracy.

If they understood the nature of this public service and treated their investment in it accordingly, we would be saved from compromising journalistic integrity in the mad scramble for ratings and circulation. In other words, if they did not expect the constantly increasing, unconscionable profits now expected from most investments but accepted a rational and steady return on their investment in this essential public service of newspapers and broadcast news. ...

But we all know what is wrong--and as professionals, we all know how to fix it if given the mandate from our bosses, or if we can wrest control from the bottom liners. Let our battle cry be: Editors, not auditors.

- Walter Cronkite, 1987

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"I'm mighty proud of our profession. I'm proud of the physical courage shown by many--in war and civil insurrection and in dozens of less spectacular ways.

I'm proud of those who expose the culpable even at the risk of their freedom, or even their lives.

I'm proud of those who have the courage to reject the favors of the newsmakers; those who do not become part of the establishment, who preserve access to the inner circle without becoming members of it.

I'm proud of those with courage to withstand the wrath of their neighbors and face social ostracism in pursuit of the truth.

I'm proud of those who have the courage to reject conformity with their colleagues and hold on to their vision of the truth while others around them seem blind and scornful.

I'm proud, too, of all those who work in the backrooms of our media--on rewrite, copy desks, assignment desks, editing film and tape--professionals all. Their devotion to this business may be greater than all those media stars they make look so good.

There are bad apples in our barrel, of course, but as a class, there is a purity of intent and purpose in journalism that is unique:

We are good conservatives, demanding proof of the need for change. We are good liberals, ideologically bound to no cause or dogma. And, so unfettered, we can make a claim of selflessness denied to other persons.

Our only enemies are those who would erect barriers between the people and the truth. And the perpetual struggle against them--ah, my friends, there is a crusade that's worth the ride."

- Walter Cronkite, 1987

TRUTH & TRUST

NYT:  Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies

CBS News:  Walter Cronkite (1916-200)


Watch CBS Videos Online

"When Mr. Cronkite was No. 1, the nightly news mattered. College students nowadays get their information from blogs and Comedy Central, not CBS. Families don’t gather in the den to eat dinner in front of “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.” Brian Williams and Katie Couric wouldn’t dare sign off with the words “and that’s the way it is.”

The television news business long ago lost that kind of prestige and importance; the audience for evening newscasts has so dwindled that this year there were more viewers on an average night for “American Idol” than for the programs on CBS, NBC and ABC combined.

Anchors try to project authority with sprawling desks and fancy computer graphics: “The CBS Evening News” studio today looks like a NASA command post. When Mr. Cronkite became anchor, the setting was somber and almost touchingly low-tech."

- Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times

"In 2009, even trust, at least in the public realm, seems an uneasy notion. It's something we continue to desire, But in an age of wholesale, instantaneous, unprecedented lying, trust is something that may not be that wise when it comes to evaluating our sources of information.

That's what has changed since Cronkite's heyday.

Today's model works more like this: Everyone vies to get his personalized, customized, agenda-driven version of "that's the way it is" enshrined in the cultural canon. We shout, cajole, maneuver, horse-trade. We demonize the opposition. We brand ideas as products and send them on their way, ready to do battle in the marketplace."

- Ted Anthony, Associated Press

"Network news anchors still aim for that mix of eloquence and authority that Cronkite embodied, but they compete, at a disadvantage, with the noise of an ascendant punditocracy and the mountain-from-molehill nattering of cable news organizations that live on crises -- it's not the old voice of reassuring honesty that they cultivate, but one of perpetual anxiety.

There are many more rooms in the mansion that is television news nowadays, but they have grown proportionately smaller; they are no longer fit for giants."

- Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times

"Black and White" by David Guilbault from David Guilbault on Vimeo.

SAD SPECULATION

It will reportedly take weeks before the results of toxicology tests help determine the cause of death of Michael Jackson.  Yet, in the meantime we will have to endure seemingly endless speculative news reports on what may have happened.  Journalists are supposed to report what DID happen, not what MAY have happened.  That current state of journalism is so very sad.  I despair.

MISTRUSTED SOURCES

As the volatile situation in Iran develops, we should all be wary of reports circulating around the Internet, on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Nevertheless, we should also be grateful that there are means to get the word out on what is happening in that press-restricted country.  But beware imposters spreading false information.

The New York Times, in its news blog, The Lede, is doing the best it can to filter through a multitude of sources to try and piece together what is actually happening.  It's worth monitoring.

NO THERE, THERE

I just watched the first of two hours presented by NBC News from "Inside the Obama White House."  Brian Williams in his blog says they have distilled the two hours of air time from 155 hours of videotape from 32 cameras.  All that time and effort and I learned little or nothing.  As usual, Brian Williams gets so caught up in his own self-conscious, florid, atmospheric, overly ornate narration that he misses an opportunity to tell an untold story.  Maybe instead of 32 cameras in one day, they should have sent 1 camera for 32 days.

PHOTO CREDIT:  Antoine Sanfuentes/ NBC News

THE EVENING NEWS

'NewsHour' on PBS to Get Makeover
The best domestic evening news program on television.

TRUTH SESSIONS

"Truth Sessions: Insights on the Common Struggles of Life" (A journalistic jazz piece) from David Guilbault on Vimeo

We all have stories to tell. We all need and want to be heard. But many of us are invisible members of our own communities. Because we may be poor, downtrodden, struggling with mental conditions or fighting addictions, our opinions and observations are largely ignored.

But our experiences and insights are valuable. Like everyone, we’re coping the best we can with the challenges of life. This ongoing project is intended to give voice to those struggles.

"Truth Sessions" is a multimedia storytelling project by filmmaker David Guilbault, photographer Doug Vann, painter Keven Furiya and composer Andy Zadrozny.

The first session features ten people living in a low income apartment building in Seattle, across the street from the artist lofts where David, Doug, Keven & Andy live and work.

These ten interviews are the first in a series of sessions. Our intention is to hear from a range of our neighbors from disparate cultural, economic, ethnic, educational, racial and spiritual backgrounds. This is just the beginning of the conversation. The stories continue.

(To see the complete multimedia work, please visit www.truthsessions.tv)

PLUMBING THE DUMB

For years, I have lamented the desecration of my revered profession, journalism.  But, I never thought I would ever see it sink (pardon the pun) this low.  Joe Wurzelbacher, 'Joe the Plumber' of McCain campaign fame, is 'reporting' from Israel about the conflict going on in Gaza for Pajamas TV.  Has there ever been a more persistently vocal and annoying stumble-bum to bask in the spotlight of idiocy?

UNCHECKED SOURCES

Well, the blogosphere and some of the mainstream media have been embarrassed again for publishing supposedly inside McCain campaign information from what turns out to be a hoaxster.  Read the story, 'A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence', on The New York Times website.

GOOD LISTENER

Studs Terkel, Chronicler of the American Everyman, Is Dead at 96

"The average American has an indigenous intelligence, a native wit. It's only a question of piquing that intelligence."

- Studs Terkel

Photo Credit:  Sara Krulwich / The New York Times