Rise in Documentaries

Filmmakers like Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore have been instrumental in the increased popularity of documentaries. Since the early 2000’s the viewership of documentaries has increased to an astounding level. While this particular brand of journalism has been extremely influential, the higher amount of documentaries has led to a level of bias and opinion that is generally left out of typical news reporting. In general a documentary focuses on real life people and contains footage of actual events. While these movies have been considered a form of journalism, more and more documentaries are made with a purpose and an agenda; causing a debate about whether or not a documentary should be unbiased. http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/nov/09/sheffield-docfest-documentary-films

Our speaker in class brought up a point that I felt to be quite poignant. As a person who’s not planning on going into journalism, being completely unbiased is a difficult concept to grasp. However, I do understand the need for keeping an author or broadcasters opinions out of news reports, and making sure that the unadulterated information is available for the general masses to form their own opinion. But with the increased rate of documentaries, I feel that they are the perfect opportunity to bring forth the “empathy and passion” that exists in every warm-blooded journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/20/documentaries-brian-cox-nick-fraser