Jim Murray

Putting the message

back in the medium

Jim Murray admits he has ruined a lot of dinner parties over the years.

With statements like ‘nobody is going to do anything about pollution in the Great Lakes until there are dead human bodies rolling up on the shores,’ it’s not surprising that casual dinner conversation grinds to a halt.

Making people uncomfortable is something that Murray, executive producer of The Nature of Things, feels is part of his job. And after over 30 years on the air and several hundred awards, including four Geminis in the last seven years, he is obviously doing something right.

‘I think we’ve had a big influence on people’s awareness of environmental issues in Canada. If you walk down the street with (Nature of Things host) David (Suzuki), young people come up to him all the time and say, `Keep up the good work Dave.’ He’s like a rock star, he has a big impact.’

Dressed in comfortable blue jeans, sweater and hiking boots, Murray looks like everyone’s idea of a typical environmentalist. He moves and sits with a concentrated physical energy, looking like he would be more comfortable hiking up a mountain trail somewhere than sitting behind an overflowing desk.

His soft voice is intense and passionate as he talks about his commitment to The Nature of Things and to the mandate he helped develop in his quarter century as executive producer of the show.

‘We want to make stimulating, interesting, challenging programming that makes people think about what’s going on in the world’. And that means covering difficult environmental issues and problems.

Producing programs that explore complex and difficult issues has its own particular challenges. Murray believes the show’s producers can make any topic interesting and he’s proven it by doing fascinating shows on subjects ranging from chaos theory to how the pyramids were built.

Murray assumes the viewer is ‘highly intelligent’ but does not bring any information to bear on the subject. He says the challenge is to find imaginative visual examples that will explain some very complex concepts.

In order to achieve this, Murray works with a group of producers he describes as very smart, very dedicated people who are passionate about what they are doing. When they are working on a story, they ‘work with top people in various fields and try to capture the enthusiasm these people have for what they are doing.’

One of the things that has made the series so popular is the beautiful pictures. ‘This is our secret weapon. We pay a tremendous amount of attention to quality, that’s why we are still on film.’

He makes the point that most of what people see on television is repetitive visuals: drama series with their courtrooms, police precincts, apartments and bars, or talk shows and sitcoms with their standard studio formats.

The basic rule that Murray follows is that you never give information with a talking head. You do as much visually as you can. ‘Natural history, the real world out there, is very beautiful. We can give you a real feeling for a place, we put a lot of effort into that, and I think it pays off.’

But there are those who don’t like what they see when they watch the show. Three times in recent years The Nature of Things has come toe to toe with some very angry, very big corporations.

The fight that got them the most publicity was when ‘Voices in the Forest’ aired in 1992. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce pulled all advertising from the show when its client, MacMillan Bloedel, the pulp and paper giant, expressed concerns about the content of the show. It claimed The Nature of Things was biased against the logging industry and took its case to the crtc.

‘We have been able to defend ourselves and to essentially prove to the satisfaction of the crtc and to the people within the corporation that The Nature of Things’ perspective on these issues helps to maintain the cbc’s overall balance,’ says Murray.

He does that by asserting that all programming is biased: ‘The news and current affairs areas tend to cover things like Clayquot Sound from the point of view of business and economics – environmentalists versus loggers, jobs and the economy, that sort of thing, whereas we have a totally different perspective.’

When Murray makes this argument, he finds that many of the senior brass in news and current affairs don’t accept the fact that their programs have as much of a bias in their ways as The Nature of Things. He points out that ‘even Man Alive has a very specific bias, it’s the human experience, the spiritual aspect, and I think that’s a bias. Venture is a completely biased show, it’s a show flogging business.’

The publicity these confrontations provide is welcomed by Murray. He also knows that this ‘doesn’t do the cbc any harm. That’s what public broadcasting is all about; you take on the important issues, you stimulate people’s interest, you argue and discuss these issues. That’s what we should be doing.’

It’s not only about blowing the whistle on the environmental damage caused by specific industries, it’s also about showing business how to do it right. ‘The Greening of Business,’ a show which aired in January, presented companies that are putting the environment first – and profiting. This shatters the myth that business and environmental concerns are natural enemies.

Murray believes that people are blind to a bias toward business in programming because we grow up without having close contact with nature. Canada, he notes, is even more highly urbanized than the u.s., with 80% of the population living in cities.

‘People grow up learning about the world with nature absent from their experience,’ says Murray. He says we are raised to accept our role as consumers and become a part of the business world, buying into the belief that economic growth and development are the lifeline of our society.

He adds that this belief dominates, even within the education system, so that you find ‘very bright, well-educated people who become editors of magazines and newspapers and heads of companies etc. who don’t really understand the environmental issues, the root causes and the real problems with what’s going on out there. They don’t take it seriously.’

One example Murray uses to illustrate this is how The Nature of Things has been perceived within the cbc itself: ‘Most of the bosses I’ve had up until the last 10 years or so, if they said anything about our programs, which was seldom, they would say, `Oh, my kids like your show.’ It was thought of as kid stuff and not the real center of concern.’

The Nature of Things originally developed out of two different half-hour programs – a science show and a wildlife show – over 30 years ago. This development coincided with Murray’s own evolution from someone with little interest in natural history to a passionate environmentalist.

‘You have to make some fundamental connection with nature to get the point of it. You can’t do a course in it, you have to experience it.’

Murray’s own direct experience came through two friends who began to interest him in the natural world. ‘It isn’t just an intellectual thing, it’s a feeling. It’s very fundamental, you have to understand that nature is all we’ve got.’

Putting ecological and environmental issues at the center of everyone’s concern is Murray’s goal, but he feels very frustrated by media indifference. ‘Last year 1,500 of the world’s leading scientists, including over 60 of the 100-odd living Nobel laureates, said, `Look, we’re putting unsustainable pressure on the earth and we have 10 years to do something about it.’ Well it gets a short report on page eight of the Globe and Mail and a 60-second bit on Prime Time News. It’s very discouraging.’

The tremendous potential of television to reach huge numbers of people has been wasted, says Murray. It’s been ‘taken over by commercial interests as a medium for selling consumerism.’

He feels that one of the most discouraging signs of the failure of tv to fulfill its potential is the fact that the American networks are being taken over by big business. The hardware companies, like Sony and Panasonic, have bought the software networks, and, according to Murray, that means u.s. television has become an entertainment medium designed to sell their products. Murray feels there is no more room for programs with a conservation ethic because ‘the whole ethic of life in the u.s. is buy and sell.’

He attributes the survival of The Nature of Things on the cbc to the fact that ‘we do good programs, we don’t spend mega-bucks, we’re not at that level, so the corporation doesn’t have to worry about us.’

A show like The Nature of Things, with its record of being the biggest seller over the long haul at the cbc, makes a difference, he says. ‘It’s useful, our program is paying some of these people’s salaries.’

With television becoming more and more a medium aimed at telling us what we want to hear, Jim Murray continues to fight this trend with programs that are challenging and controversial.

‘In lots of places in the world the bodies are already rolling up on the shores from poverty and the population pressures on the land turning arable land into waste land. It’s happening out there in the third world.

‘We’re cushioned. There are going to have to be pretty heavy-duty catastrophes before things change. And then we’ve lost a lot of time.’

Murray stops to consider what he has said, gazing out at the steel and glass office towers that fill the view from his office. This is the heart of corporate Canada, the very people he is up against.

When he finally turns back, he says: ‘Maybe we have to take another look at what the Luddites said in the 19th century. They were people who rejected technology. They believed we must `walk lightly on the land’. That’s something we need to understand if we hope to survive.’

Nancy Carter is a third year media writing student in the Radio and Television Arts program at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto.