Absolute Trust Research Articles

Dynamics of Successful Coaching of Student Talent in Broadcasting: An elusive art in the news lab

An elusive art in the news lab is very little written about how educators can be better coaches to broadcasting students. Perhaps it's too narrow a topic to warrant exhaustive study. Perhaps it's too elusive an art to be dealt with effectively in scholarly research. But I submit that some attention to developing effective techniques can go a long way toward improving effectiveness in the broadcasting lab. The value Some folks make the same mistakes over and over again because no one tells them differently as their career moves along. DON FITZPATRICK, CONS LITANI DON FITZPATRICK ASSOCIATES SAN FRANCISCO Broadcast educators enjoy a privileged position when it comes to nurturing talent. Unlike news directors in the marketplace who often must attempt to guide those resistant to change, educators typically work with students who are receptive and eager for instruction. Students, by definition, are predisposed to learning new ways of doing things. So growing in a school setting ought to be easy. It is anything but that. The process gets complicated perhaps because it has less to do with journalism than it does with ego and self-esteem. Coaching in a student newsroom can, at times, be very much like tip-toeing through an emotional mine field. The less stalwart among us avoid any significant because of the potential risks. We might, after all, hurt someone's feelings, or crush a fledgling career. But I suggest that we ought to be fully involved in meaningful, constructive criticism with our students-if for no other reason than it may be the last such help they receive. In a professional broadcasting environment, even in smaller markets, managers seldom nurture neophytes. My personal professional experience includes almost 20 years in TV newsrooms-half of that as on-camera talent working for eight different news directors. While there is no doubt that I could have benefited from some coaching, particularly in my early years in small markets, I received none. Even on the one occasion when outside consultants were brought in to help us better our product, the one-on-one coaching session resulted in no specific suggestions for improvement (and I assure you that there was room for some.) Instead, my performance improved largely by imitating those whom I believed were more accomplished. Dave Goren, sports anchor in Winston-Salem, N.C., has had similar experiences. He says he's worked for six news directors so far, and every one of them has avoided any attempt at coaching. found that news directors have left me alone. The ones I've worked for either have no knowledge of sports, or don't care. I can't think of one instance in which a news director has tried to help me improve. Does that mean I'm perfect? Highly doubtful. The lack of input from above can be looked at in two ways: I'm glad they're not butting in; or, why don't they care? Broadcasting consultant Bill McMahon, president of Mediavision Ltd., San Diego, suggests that it comes down to ineptitude. Management doesn't really know how to coach, since they themselves have never been trained to do it, as they worked their way up the ladder. Looking back on the bosses I've worked for, I tend to agree with McMahon. I believe that they simply felt inadequate and unprepared for the task, and deeply uncomfortable about broaching what could have been an emotionally risky encounter. Establish trust There has to be absolute trust and respect. BILL MCMAHON MEDIAVISION LTD. SAN DIEGO During my years in TV newsrooms, I found myself occasionally cast in the role as mentor to interns and newcomers. In that environment, it would have been inappropriate to tell the beginners that it was okay to admit uncertainty, or to make mistakes. In fact, the stakes were very high and weakness or errors could have been fatal to their budding careers. …

Misquotations from Reality

Misquotations from Reality Ann Lauterbach (bio) In the girdle of Aphrodite, in the crown, in the body of Helen and her phantom, beauty is superimposed over necessity, cloaking it in deceit. The necessary has a certain splendor, and behind any splendor one senses a metallic coldness, as though of a weapon poised to strike. The real split in Greek consciousness, like all other irreversible steps it took, comes when Plato for the first time affirms, ‘How very different is the nature of the necessary from the nature of the good.’ And he means an immense, an unbridgeable distance—the same distance that made atheists of ‘those who study astronomy and other sciences of the necessary, when they see that what is, is so out of necessity and not out of any plan conceived by some will to accomplish the good.’ The Beautiful, in this scenario, must either be quickly reabsorbed into the Good—as its agent, instrument, and pedagogue—or left up in the air, like a malignant spell (goeteuma) bewitching the mind only to subject it even more helplessly to the fiat of necessity. —Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony l. The Stranger’s Hand Once at the circus, when I was young we were strolling around in a throng of clowns and cotton candy, bright sun, I looked up to find that the hand I was holding was that of a stranger. Just before dawn, ejected from sleep, I am unraveled into another condition. The place between these two conditions is complex and difficult, a peculiar suspension between two exclusive frames for which there is no dialogue box. The familiar crosses into the unfamiliar and back again. What separates works of art from the fallible empirical world is not their higher degree of perfection but their ability to actualize themselves in a brilliant and expressive appearance just like fireworks. 1 Fireworks! Temporality construed as ephemeral vision. And so: In every work of art something appears that does not exist. 2 And so: The question of the truth of art comes into view when a non-existent is seen to rise as if it were real. In terms of its form, art promises what is not real. Objectively, it raises the claim, however obliquely this may come out, that just because something appears, it [End Page 143] must be possible to imbue it with being. The unquenchable longing excited by the beautiful is the longing for the fulfillment of a promise. 3 The promise of meaning. One of my students writes, “We deem beautiful that which offers meaning to our meaningless lives.” I failed to draw a map and you followed it perfectly because the word for ‘cannot’ inscribes itself here to define an atmosphere of absolute trust which both fastens and unfastens us. 4 Day unblooms into insatiable prerogatives vetoed sustained in their august sudden ramifications as if saying so Every frame is danger and security. Poems that interest me are poems that show me how to proceed, not where to go or what to look at. They assuage the panic of the Stranger’s Hand by awakening curiosity rather than fear. The poem attests to the mobility of the frame, not to the totality of the picture. Thus the grip of realism has found a picture chosen to cover the space occupied by another picture establishing a flexibility so we are not immobile like a car that spends its night outside a window, but mobile like a spirit. 5 * * * but we were not, we are not shadows; as we walk, heel and sole leave our sandal-prints in the sand, though the wounded heel treads lightly and more lightly follow, the purple sandals. 6 [End Page 144] 2. The Real Thing A poet too has constantly to ask himself: “but is what I am writing really true?”—and this does not necessarily mean: “Is this how it happens in reality?” 7 I do not remember when or why I became interested in looking at the ways in which notions of the truth and notions of the real had become blurred. Perhaps in the slogans of advertising. Perhaps it was the political discourse around the Vietnam...

An Integrity Born of Hope: Notes on Christopher Isherwood

There is a passage in Stephen Spender's autobiography, World Within World, that has fascinated me since I first read it-in the early fifties. He is speaking of his first meeting with Isherwood: Auden had spoken of Isherwood in a way which made me think of him as The Novelist, who, 4pplying himself with an iron will to the study of material of his work, was determined to live the life of the Ordinary Man, going to the office in a train, dancing in dance halls at seaside resorts, dressing with a studied avoidance of every kind of distinctiveness, and so on. Isherwood, according to Auden, held no opinions whatever about anything. He was wholly and simply interested in people. He did not like or dislike them, judge them favourably or unfavourably. He simply regarded them as material for his Work. At the same time, he was the Critic in whom Auden had absolute trust. If Isherwood disliked a poem, Auden destroyed it without demur. Should he select one line for praise and condemn the rest, then Auden skilfully inserted this one line into a new poem ...

Lope de Vega, 1562–1635

IN August, 1935, Spain will commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the death of Lope de Vega. To the average reader outside of Spain, the name of Cervantes as creator of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is undoubtedly familiar; the mention of his famous compatriot, Lope de Vega, is not likely to find a similar response. Any allusion to the foremost Spanish playwright will hardly conjure up the title of a famous work or recall a noteworthy character of his invention. His name has become synonymous rather with that of the miracle author, of the superman who composed uncounted hundreds of plays, which were only a portion of his uncanny output in poetry and prose. In fact, even in brief histories of literature his reputation is described so as to leave the impression that it is based upon a prodigious feat of production rather than upon the positive achievement of definite well-known works. No doubt Lope brought this fate upon himself during his own lifetime, when he was already known as the monster of nature; and thereafter some of his eulogizers, who took pleasure in informing the reader, not about his special claim to renown, but about the unbelievable millions of verses which he composed stans pede in uno, confirmed the impression. No such fluent improvisor as Lope can be found in any other age or literature. Although only about one-fourth of his entire production has survived, if we are to put absolute trust in his own words and fantastic figures, the remnant would fill a shelf long enough to compete with Dr. Eliot's collection of world-literature. His miscellaneous works furnish sufficient reading material for the rest of our natural lives, and the contents will be analyzed and picked over for possible thesis-subjects as long as this academic tradition survives.

Authorship of "Revenge for Honour"

Previous article FreeAuthorship of "Revenge for Honour"D. L. ThomasD. L. Thomas Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 5, Number 4Apr., 1908 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/386759 Views: 107Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.