The BBC television newsreel and the Korean War

NOTES

• Briggs , A. 1979 . History of Broadcasting in the UK, Vol. IV—Sound & Vision , 207 – 207 . Oxford : Oxford University Press . Briggs, quoting the minutes of the TV Programme Planning Committee, says that “British Movietone would not go so far as to allow the BBC to have a copy of its film of the reopening of the BBC's TV service”. I have been unable to trace any such film in the Movietone film library, and presume therefore that, since the only such film exists in the Pathé film library, Pathé must have been the company concerned.
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• See The BBC Television Newsreel paper read by Philip Dorté to the British Kinematograph Society, 26 November 1952, and his report ‘The BBC Television Newsreel’, 12 July 1954, both in File No. T/16/123/3 TV Policy—Newsreel (BBC-WAC).
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• Dorté , P.H. 1949 . The BBC Television newsreel . BBC Quarterly , 3 : 229 – 229 . 230
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• Dorté Philip The BBC Television Newsreel 1952 paper read to the British Kinematograph Society, 26 November (File No. T6/214 TV Films: Newsreel Association 1947–54 BBC-WAC).
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• Horton , D. 1951 . Television's Story & Challenge , 132 – 132 . London : Harrap .
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• Paulu , B. 1956 . British Broadcasting: radio and television in the United Kingdom , 292/293 – 292/293 . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press .
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• Briggs 591 – 591 .
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• December 1952 . Tom Hopkinson—Report on Television Newsreel December , January 1953 in File No. T/16/123/3 Television Policy—Newsreel (BBC-WAC).
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• The most useful recent books on the history of the Korean war are MacDonald C.A. Korea: the war before Vietnam Macmillan Basingstoke 1986 and M. Hastings (1987) The Korean War (London, Michael Joseph). See also R. Foot (1985) The Wrong War: American policy and the international dimension of the Korean conflict 1950–1953 (Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell University Press).
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• The full text of the President's statement is on pp. 357/8 of Truman H.S. Years of Trial & Hope Doubleday New York 1956
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• See the articles ‘TV Newsreel man thrives on danger’ by Greatorex W.G. John Bull 1951 December 11 12 1 and John Bretton—‘It's tough work getting these Korean pictures’ in Television Weekly (26 January 1951), p. 11.
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• See the account of the episode in chapter 25 of Truman (op. cit.). See also Goulden J.C. Korea—the untold story of the war McGraw Hill New York 1982 and G. Herken (1980) The Winning Weapon (New York, Knopf).
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• See the account of the suppression by the proprietor of Picture Post of his account of such atrocities in Cameron J. Point of Departure Arthur Barker London 1978 131 133 143–5. See also the articles in The Times (9 October 1950) and the Daily Mirror (7 November 1950)—‘The UN must put a stop to this brutality’.
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• See the account in Cutforth R. Korean Reporter Heinemann London 1955 97 98 Cutforth was the BBC's correspondent in Korea in 1950/1.
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• Cutforth 141 – 141 .
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• Cutforth 41 – 45 . See also W.G. Greatorex—‘TV Newsreel man thrives on danger’ in John Bull (1 December 1951)—‘“The best human story to come out of the war” says a colleague’; George Campey in the Evening Standard (3 April 1951)—Page's films were, he says, “perhaps the best newsreel account of the campaign yet seen in this country”; News Chronicle (3 April 1951)—‘Congratulations to TV Cameraman Cyril Page for the best newsreel coverage from Korea I have seen … It is not often TV gets scoops. Page has led the commercial newsreels from the start’; and John Bretton—‘It's tough work getting these Korean pictures’ in Television Weekly (26 January 1951)—“pictures of a standard generally far above that of the ordinary commercial companies.” See also the article by Robert Hirst in Television Weekly (1 June 1951).
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• Noble , R. 1955 . Shoot First! Assignments of a newsreel cameraman , London : Harrap . This book is a valuable companion to understanding the film material.
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• See ‘TV Cameraman in Korea’ by Ronny [sic] Noble, as told to Wallace Raeburn, in Everybody's 1952 April 26
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• Noble 179 – 180 .
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• Noble 181 – 187 .
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• Noble 189 – 189 .
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• Noble 202 – 203 . The action reported in the subsequent pages is more vividly described here than it appears on the screen (in TNR 437, 15 October 1951).
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• Noble 211 – 220 . See also the article ‘UN Cameramen in Kaesong’ (Manchester Guardian 12 July 1951).
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• Noble 170 – 173 .
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• Noble 198 – 199 .
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• Noble 194 – 198 .
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• Noble 191 – 192 . It is not clear from the text whether the scenes described on pp. 194–8 are concerned with this or with Noble's earlier story, in July 1951. See note 37 supra.
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• Press comment was mixed. See Johns Mark Millions shocked by TV Film of Korea atrocities Daily Sketch 1953 November in the 13 and Robert Cannell—‘Horror? I call it a stunt’ in the Daily Express (13 November 1953) who commented that ‘the whole thing was about as significant as Muffin the Mule’.
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• Briggs 240 – 240 .
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• See Briggs. Part IV Section 2 passim, and Goldie G. Wyndham Facing the Nation: television & politics 1936–1976 Bodley Head London 1977
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• Howard Thomas—‘Newsreels turn TV rivalry into Box Office Tonic’ Kinematograph Weekly 1952 March in 20
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