ABSTRACT
The topical report is one form of the television documentary program—its equivalent of The March of Time. The producer, the man who does the blending, is as much a journalist as the writer of feature articles on a daily newspaper. Imaginative presentation is a fine ideal, but it often seems very elusive to a man who is continually working against time. Yet the professional expert is rarely a professional script-writer; he is untrained in the complex methods of writing for a medium where pictures count for more than words. Special Enquiry: a Report for Television, which the B.B.C. began in 1952, was an attempt to break away from the “personality” approach, to find a new way of handling similar subject-matter. The fundamental decisions on subject-matter, general method and point of view rest largely with the producer. Its strength lies in the tradition from which it springs and to which it owes a well-proved technique and a sound crusading zeal.
