To beat Matt Mrozinski’s “Ethical Friday” posts early – a policy from the Murrow-era of CBS:

“[T]here shall be no re-creation, no staging, no production technique which would give the viewer an impression of any fact other than the actual fact, no matter how minor or seemingly inconsequential. The only way there can be certainty is not to let the bars down at all. Anything which gives the viewer an impression of time, place, event, or person other than the actual fact as it is being recorded and broadcast cannot be tolerated.

“I recognize that strict application of this policy will result in higher costs or a less technically perfect or interesting ‘show’ in certain instances. But our field is journalism, not show business.”

November 1959 memorandum from Richard Salant to the CBS News department

CBS at the time was hiring many former newsreel cameramen and soundmen who came from a world with traditions which thought nothing of staging some scenes to make a more interesting news story.

I’ll be posting the entire 1970s-era “CBS Operating Standards: News and Public Affairs” that I have a copy of in a few days along with commentary from an employee of the era.