So many snippets to pass on this week, not one big enough for its own post (in my opinion anyway), so I'm just going to throw them at you:
- Tom Giles has been named new editor of the BBC's current affairs strand Panorama, replacing Sandy Smith who has moved to the One Show. It's not a huge surprise, given that up until now he had been deputy editor... Thanks to Broadcast for that one.
- Simon Shaps, former director of television at ITV, has spoken up this week ahead of his appearance at this weekend's SEE Festival in Brighton, that documentaries "are cool, and much in demand – films as diverse as The September Issue, An Inconvenient Truth and Man on Wire, for example. Yet traditional broadcasters are not committing to fully funding these programmes. There is oversupply as the barriers to entry are much lower – anyone with a camera can call themselves a documentary maker." Not news as such, but always interesting to hear someone else say what we're all thinking.
- Enemies of the People, directed by Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin, fresh from its win at Sundance, has been announced the recipient of the True/False Film Festival's True Life Fund, which aims to raise $10,000 during next week's festival for the directors' ongoing work in Cambodia. Rob presented the film as a work in progress at a very early 10x10. I don't like emphasising the 10x10 bit like we have some kind of ownership over this amazing film, but I do it because it's one of my favourite ever screeners, and because when I saw it at IDFA last year it blew me away. You have to watch this film.
- And lastly, because I can't let a week go by without thanking TV Mole, we learn that Jamie Oliver has won the 2010 TED Prize, worth $100k, which he's using to tackle the USA's obesity problem in the same way that he tackled our problem with school dinners. Go Jamie!
Until next week, it just leaves me to flag up once again, our
really important announcement about changes to membership.