Pressing pause
When documentary films zoom in on newspaper stories from yesteryear, what do you do?
It’s a brief Inside Edge today — more along the lines of a musing than anything terribly weighty. I hope it’s just the light touch that a long holiday weekend calls for.
~Matt
What do you do when a documentary film slaps a newspaper story into the narrative? Do you absorb what you can from the few moments of screen time, and let the documentary roll along?
After all, we’re talking about a film here — the focus is not that old print story; the long-ago news clip is just a way to spice up the visuals.
In other words, are you normal?
Or do you hurriedly press pause and read as much of the account as possible? (There’s got to be a medical term for this condition — chronic-old-newspaper-reader-atosis maybe?)
I used to be one of those latter types, exasperating my wife while perusing every last word on the screen while she waited for us to resume watching the doc.
But I’ve moved on from that mere amateur news nerd status.
I’ve taken my obsessiveness to the next level: I try to run down those clips (via my Newspapers.com account) so that I can dig in even more on the story. And who knows— maybe that research will lead me down a few additional rabbit holes prompted by an adjacent story on the page.
The most recent instance occurred last night, and, in a reflection of just how severe my condition has become, it wasn’t even sparked by a documentary. The day before, during the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving game against the Green Bay Packers, the FOX Sports broadcast underscored how long it had been since the Lions had begun a season with eight wins and only two losses.
The year was 1962, and one of the flashback moments they provided was a headline from that year about John Madden being named head football coach at a junior college. It was his first head coaching role in a career that would eventually include becoming a Hall of Fame professional football coach for the Oakland Raiders, then a beloved football broadcaster for decades.
Pressing “pause” wasn’t an option, so I jotted down a few key words from the headline: “John Madden Named Grid Coach…”
That was all it took to locate the below story from the February 21, 1962 edition of the Santa Maria (Calif.) Times.
Which brings us to today’s two-question poll…
A few months ago, I did the same thing with “Reggie,” the documentary on Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson. Part of his journey, in 1967, was playing in the minor leagues in Birmingham, Alabama.
I found this clip in the Birmingham Post-Herald, which was featured for a few moments in the documentary.
A close reading of the caption reveals Jackson is misidentified as the second player from the left; he’s actually the third from left. Mistakes happen, so rest assured: I have no plans to make a documentary on this gaffe.
If you can relate to my behavior, don’t leave me all alone: Please share your own documentary-pausing history in the comments. And if you can’t relate, your feedback is also welcome, of course.
I read all of the Madden story you attached because I have a deep interest in Madden, and I suppose he is/was one of my heroes. When I was probably 11 or 12 years old, I was given his "with" autobiography (Dave Anderson the co-author), "Hey, Wait a Minute! I wrote a Book!", and I have exact memory of many, many stories from that. If you just imbibe everything that is in there, your historical football knowledge will greatly increase, particularly of the Oakland Raider teams from '67 to '78.
As an aside, the usual model is for the play-by-play man to pump the color guy for all of his experiences from the field of battle. There are plenty of gratuitous references. Summerall and Madden weren't like that. He never betrayed any allegiance to the Raiders, and kept those stories in house. But they are there in his books. When it came to his commentary, he focused on the game in front of him, and let the merit of what he said stand on its own. Not only did he not name drop, he didn't name drop himself.
I skipped the Madden piece, because I give not a whit about sports. But otherwise, I'm with ya.