They keep us all honest

David Lloyd, Chairman of the Judges, gives his report

If 1998 is to go down as a memorable year in television journalism, it may well be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Will this - after all - be the year of the "TV Fake"? Certainly, the industry has been dogged by this issue ever since The Guardian went to town on Carlton’s Network First documentary, The Connection.

While broadcasters can easily demonstrate that the statutes that govern their behaviour are far more tightly drawn and policed than those of any newspaper, and while my experience suggests that would-be deceivers are very few and far between, the debate that is now rolling has very much kept television juries on their toes!

What a relief, then, to assemble one September day to judge the more than thirty entries for this year’s Rory Peck Award, where the focus would be on authenticity rather than artifice and where what one saw was, very decidedly, what one got. I can’t believe Rory ever shot a reconstruction in his life or would ever have had any truck with them!

It is extraordinary how the current overcharged climate has generated quite so many myths. Myth one – than an increasingly freelanced industry will necessarily cut corners. Yet the Rory Peck entrants attest to an incorruptible strength of method. Myth two – that the pressures of the television marketplace signal an end to proper research and development. Yet those who work to Rory’s legacy demonstrate time and again that sheer initiative and commitment can give the lie to the accountant’s bottom line.

How else to describe one of tonight’s finalists, Robert Adams’ The Hidden War for 2 Vandaag and Frontline Television? Here was an excellent piece of camerawork and storytelling from the Iranian/Afghan border, delivering a truly original insight on the war against the heroin trade. Yet Adams’ achievement is notable not only for the footage he brought home but for the unremitting determination that fired him for two long years to persuade the Iranians to let him in.

Similarly motivated – unstoppable indeed – is Gwynne Roberts, specially commended again this year. Only a person of Gwynne’s singular initiative would have held to the ambition of travelling to Halabja on the tenth anniversary of Saddam’s gassing of the Kurdish population. The result – for Dispatches – assisted by Claudio von Planta and John Williams, led to one of the bravest and most harrowing documentaries of the year.

No less harrowing was Rhys Williams’ record of Romania’s Forgotten Children for ITN, the combined product of solid, “on-the-ground” research and the ability to seize the moment on the shoot. Closer to home, Ben Anderson showed similar resource, and courage of a rather different kind, in living with the corpses for a Channel 4 Undercover to expose dubious practices in a firm of undertakers.

This year, as last, the award entries provide a crucial snapshot to the true range of freelance activity. This year, as last, freelancers patrolled every important flashpoint on the globe. In Kosovo for Channel 4 News, Max Stahl showed wit and courage by turns to investigate Serbian vote-rigging and to witness the first, embryonic steps of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Miguel Gil for APTN delivered, by any standards, an exemplary portfolio from the KLA front line. Here was camera journalism of the highest craft and control, richly deserving its place among the finalists; the danger and the fear that stalked that bright summer’s afternoon come through every fluent frame. In Indonesia Didit Haryadi for ABC News provided a unique long-form record of the progress from student demonstration to street riot to, ultimately, the end of the Suharto regime.

But it was the most recurrent of all the world’s hotspots, the Middle East, that delivered what was surely the most dramatic single shot of the year. Travelling through Southern Lebanon for ZDF, Shlomi Afriat’s APC was hit by a roadside bomb. His leg and arm mangled, his body shattered perhaps to the edge of death, Shlomi’s first instinct was to reach out for his camera and press the button.

It is that instinct, that unstinting commitment to record and inform, that we all salute with these awards – the extraordinary men and women who keep us all honest and every year confound the myth-makers.


The closing date for entries to the 1998 Rory Peck Award was 4th September, 1998, and the judging was on 11th September.

This year's judges

Chairman
David Lloyd
Head of News, Current Affairs and Business
Channel 4 Television

Secretary to the Judges
Eithne Treanor
Freelance media executive

Panel

The Rory Peck Awards Brochure 1998

• Winner
• Finalists
• Special Commendations

• From the Patron
• From the Chairman
• They keep us all honest
• My year: on the frontline
• My year: in the studio
• My year: undercover
• The year - and beyond
• When the shooting has to stop
• Better prepared than repaired
• Complete list of entrants