Blogged and Sold

That is the title of an Op-Ed at NYT which reminded me of a period in my past.
The Link ...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/08sicha.html?th&emc=th

Back when I joined TVNZ my mentor was Don Montgomery and he used to get quite worked up when the numerous 'stringer' cameramen happilly included a firms name or advertising sign in their shots. TVNZ had but one cameraman in those days and relied upon casual cameramen around the country for coverage. Our job at Head Office News was to re-arrange items from around the country, there was no network in those days, for distribution to the centres that had not already seen it 'last night'. We also received items from around the world for use on NZTV. Now the point to Don's irritation was the fact that in his earlier life when working for Pacific Films his livelihood depended on only showing things in the background which had been paid for in some way. I remember one shot Pacific had in a sequence at Trentham Racecourse in which a Tip Top truck slowly arrived at the main stand, nothing to do with the story of course.