Entry tags:
Czechoslovakia calling
Book Review: Making a Noise - Getting it Right, Getting it Wrong in Life, the Arts and Broadcasting, by John Tusa
This was a work book sale find; I picked it up out of curiosity. As a child and young adult I remembered Tusa occasionally appearing on news and current affairs programmes on TV; probably in the context of more complex stories involving foreign affairs or the arts, as a consultant as much as a journalist, a distinctive voice, always assured but not arrogant. It's an interesting read, broadly a conventional autobiography but perhaps with a slightly unconventional balance. There is more on Tusa's interesting family history, coming from the Bata factory community in Zlin, Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, when his father obtained a job running the factory in East Tilbury. Evidently a position of means, his parents sought a high status education for their sons, and Tusa went to public school and, after National Service, to Trinity College, Cambridge. Conversely, perhaps there is less on Tusa's own family life, with little on meeting his wife while at Cambridge, and Tusa manages to keep any political opinions close to his chest, beyond giving off disdain for most positions. Following a BBC General Traineeship, his career followed a freelance route for some years, before going on to present Newsnight, and then becoming Managing Director of BBC External Services (later rebranded BBC World Service). This seems an unusual career path, and there's something in the writing that makes me feel a little questioning: is there some unconscious privilege or sense of entitlement? Perhaps it is just ambition. But, to be fair, Tusa also records times when things did not go according to plan, including candid accounts of troubled years in the early 1990s at the BBC, and a short and unhappy spell as head of house at Wolfson College, Cambridge, before moving on to happier times at the Barbican. On balance, he gets it about right.
This was a work book sale find; I picked it up out of curiosity. As a child and young adult I remembered Tusa occasionally appearing on news and current affairs programmes on TV; probably in the context of more complex stories involving foreign affairs or the arts, as a consultant as much as a journalist, a distinctive voice, always assured but not arrogant. It's an interesting read, broadly a conventional autobiography but perhaps with a slightly unconventional balance. There is more on Tusa's interesting family history, coming from the Bata factory community in Zlin, Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, when his father obtained a job running the factory in East Tilbury. Evidently a position of means, his parents sought a high status education for their sons, and Tusa went to public school and, after National Service, to Trinity College, Cambridge. Conversely, perhaps there is less on Tusa's own family life, with little on meeting his wife while at Cambridge, and Tusa manages to keep any political opinions close to his chest, beyond giving off disdain for most positions. Following a BBC General Traineeship, his career followed a freelance route for some years, before going on to present Newsnight, and then becoming Managing Director of BBC External Services (later rebranded BBC World Service). This seems an unusual career path, and there's something in the writing that makes me feel a little questioning: is there some unconscious privilege or sense of entitlement? Perhaps it is just ambition. But, to be fair, Tusa also records times when things did not go according to plan, including candid accounts of troubled years in the early 1990s at the BBC, and a short and unhappy spell as head of house at Wolfson College, Cambridge, before moving on to happier times at the Barbican. On balance, he gets it about right.