The life of a foreign press corps member may well conjure images of Hemingway dodging a shower of bullets.

But those reporters whose tour of duty takes them on to the battlefields of Hollywood see a different kind of action.

They spend all year writing about the comings and goings of the silver screen's big names. But once a year, for the Golden Globe Awards, the foreign journalists get a turn at writing the script.

It is down to the 80 or so members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to decide which films, stars and television programmes will get the pre-Oscar gongs.

But it is not all easy-going for the Association. Despite their ceremony attracting a worldwide audience of more than 20 million in 120 countries, they do not always receive the respect they might wish.

Globe winners are wise to have a speech ready on Oscars' night.

Two years ago the Washington Post reported that most of the people choosing the winners were "not full-time journalists, but part-time freelancers for small publications in places like Lithuania and Bangladesh", and they included "a college professor, a retired engineer, a man who runs an 'auto removal service', and another who until recently sold appliances in Burbank".

Howard Suber of the University of California film production course told the paper that the ceremony could do more harm than good. "For some pipsqueak band of 88 stringers who don't represent anything is damaging to any kind of fair assessment of the importance of film," he said.

Last year, the Association's president Philip Berk, told the Los Angeles Times that he acknowledged that 40% of his members were not full-time journalists. But he said the association's prestige and importance had grown, and it was very strict rules on both who could be a member and which films would qualify for the awards.

Now with a primetime television deal with NBC, the organisation has the funds to put on a party in style and the exposure to attract celebrity hosts.

The Golden Globes will probably never be anything more than a precursor to the Oscars, but they have shown an uncanny knack of picking winners. In the last 15 years, 11 Best Motion Picture winners at the Globes have gone on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Its ability to whet the entertainment world's appetite for awards shows that, despite any lingering doubts, backslapping is a difficult thing to resist.

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