Pat Mitchell Tribute

Full Frame Festival

April 12, 2003

 

 

Such a tribute would be special under any circumstances, but today's circumstances make it even more so.

First of all, for a recovering documentary producer, to get an award at a festival entirely devoted to documentaries is almost enough to make me want me to quit this executive business and get back in the trenches of independent filmmaking.

Of course, when I was there, there wasn't a Full Frame Festival to come to.

And to be presented the award by the chairman of your board, a man with a distinguished career as a business executive and now as a lecturer and former head of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University makes this honor even more so.  Rex Adams, is the kind of executive who gives executives and business a better name than most, and his experience, perspective and support are making a big difference at PBS.

 

I’m also reminded at this time of how fortunate I am to be in a position where you are honored for the work of other extraordinarily talented people, the people who bring their documentaries to PBS.
Some of whom you just saw in the film…and many of whom I see in the audience today.

I think the only fair thing to do, given that there are so many people in this audience more deserving of this tribute than I, and who certainly contributed to my getting it would be to turn this into a “tribute relay” and we could just pass the award from person to person.

Congratulations are in order to Nancy Buirski and the team that produces the Full Frame Festival.  You have made it the coolest place to come for good docs, stimulating conversations, and hanging out with people of passion and purpose.

That's how I think of us…people who are passionate about ideas, and who are purposeful about using film to illuminate ideas and issues in ways that can, and often do change minds, change lives, even change the world.

 

Isn't that why we are all here?

 

A few days ago I was standing at a podium talking about my number one topic these days, public broadcasting, and making the case that never before has there been a time when the role of public service media was more critical, more essential.

A young man stood up and asked me a very direct question.  He said, "I've read your bio; I know you come from some small town in south Georgia, not exactly known for breeding independent thinkers; and while you started out on the right track as a teacher, you left the south for big city journalism, had a lot of different jobs for a lot of different networks and cable channels, and now you're a sounding like a born again teacher…How do you account for yourself?"

 

Good question, even if he did sound a lot like my father in the way he asked it.

But of course, at times like these when your career is being trotted out for a tribute and you listen to friends and colleagues talk about you, well, it does seem like a good time to account for yourself.

Growing up female in the 50's, the ways you could account for yourself were limited by what we called the magic circle of expectations-- a BS degree, followed by an MRS degree, followed by an MOM.

I completed the circle by age 22. But soon I was swept up in the two big social movements of the times: civil rights and women's rights.  And I knew I had to do something that felt more connected to these seismic shifts in our country than teaching Shakespeare to college freshman;

I decided to leave it all…the south, a marriage, teaching, and while I had not imagined that it would be an opportunity in television…and specifically the chance to report and produce documentaries that would provide that connection, that is what happened.

Within minutes after making my first special report on NBC news...not exactly a documentary, I was hooked on the impact.  Find a story, learn as much as quickly as you can, work with a crew to shoot, edit, write, report…and if you made it compelling enough, people would watch, learn, respond, and from time to time, that response just might change a life, or a mind, or even a community.

What a connection. What a responsibility to be sure that the facts were right and the outcome positive.

It’s not always easy to know for sure.  But as I came to understand more fully the power of media, I came to more fully embrace the concept of accountability for outcome.

In trying times like the one in which you and I are living and working, times that are testing our values and our strength, both politically and economically, I am increasingly focused on this issue of accountability.

And if you would allow me a few minutes to share some of those thoughts with you…because you…we… are  all stakeholders in this discussion and the architects of how well media, in all its forms, responds to what I perceive as an urgent need  to be more accountable to the American public.

First of all, let's agree that media is a term that would cover the work of nearly everyone in this room…we are all in one way or another involved in the creation of content that we hope will get distributed in some way, through television, in movie theatres, on the internet, on palm pilots, in newspapers, on radio…to people who will read it, listen to it, watch it, interact with it and be in some way better informed, more inspired, engaged and perhaps, even changed by it.

That's what motivates those of us who choose careers in media.  Or at least that's what, in my opinion, should motivate us and be at the foundation of our choices about the content we create--

the accountability for the impact of it; the recognition that we are not writing or producing or distributing or directing for ourselves alone, to borrow a phase that we have gratefully heard and discussed during this festival in terms of gender…

Because what we do, you and I, does have impact, does make a difference.  Whether that is a difference that we are willing to stand accountable for is what's on my mind more and more lately.   As someone who has the responsibilities for making a lot of those decisions, I think about what content gets produced and distributed and what kind of impact that content has on the lives of citizens we serve and the country and world in which we are finding bigger challenges every day.

 

Never has it been more important for us to be accountable as the watchdogs that media, and in particular, journalism, was set up to be in a democracy.  Never has it been more essential for us to responsibly address the issues of our times and to do whatever we can, in whichever environment we choose to work…from inside and outside…to ensure that all voices, all opinions get a forum to be heard.

I come to Durham thinking a lot about a world that is completely wired now.  Wired by this electronic nervous system that makes it possible for us to be live and in real time on the frontlines of war, even if the war sometimes looks more like a video game…and embedded reporters can seem a bit too embedded.  I think about the hopes that such a borderless world might bring about greater understanding and a sustainable peace, but has instead created new realities of borderless diseases and acts of terrorism.

What role is the media playing? How accountable are we?

You may be thinking that it’s challenging enough to be accountable to your family, your job…and hard enough to just get the accounts balanced between what you want to do and can afford to do.

 

And here I am, suggesting we can change the world.

I could cite examples of how the work represented in this room and at this festival has already done that and will continue to do so.

Jonathan Demme said last night that it feels right now, like we are just trying to get past all the bad stuff so that we can get the good stuff happening again.

We are in need of lots of that good stuff, and we are the group that must be held accountable for making it, paying for it, distributing it, exhibiting it.

Passion and purpose are the first steps…but surely accountability for outcome has to be in our hearts and minds from the start, and with us through every challenging step.

On the days when the challenges seem to outweigh the passion and purpose, I just remind myself that media is just too powerful to leave only in the hands of those who use it to produce impressive bottom lines and returns to stockholders.

Media is just too powerful not to hold all of us who choose this work accountable for its impact, which is undeniably either the strongest pillar of a democracy, or its weakest link.  There has never been a greater need for all of us, our society's storytellers, our country's documentarians, our world's greatest hope, to be strong, resolute, passionate, purposeful and yes, accountable.

This tribute will also remind me of that and I am grateful for it.