The words below dates from 1939 via Norman Alley.

“Big problem of the newsreeler today is not engaging in battles of wits with his competitors, or pulling out of hair raising scrapes. It’s the dull and difficult task of injecting something new in approach—of avoiding the trite—in the regular assignments that come his way. Newsreelers spend a lot of thought on that problem.

…99 per cent of the assignments handed the newsreel photographer are of the type that have been done over and over again. …political, sports, personalities…contests, fires, disasters, floods…are among the routine assignments that demand initiative on the part of the photographer to prevent audience boredom.

The photographer with initiative studies each situation in advance, seeking to find the particular news angle of the event that will strike a responsive chord with the public. He tries to center on this one smash value and to also build up as many contributory and supporting angles as possible. In fact, the newsreeler instead of covering “something new every day” must try to find some new angle every day for something old. And in this task he must be his own writer, director and technical expert.”