Part b

News: Why is the notion of truth so important to news?
The news is renowned for telling the truth and is a reliable
source for truthful news stories and reports, just proving a
point from the BARB website that on the 3RD of January at
18:06pm, 7.03 million (<-this is a link) watched the BBC news
so this just shows how reliable it actually is and how many
people trust it so it shows how truthful it is. The news
reports stories to tell the audience what is going on in the
world so if it isn’t truthful they would then begin to lose
viewers and the whole point of the show would be ruined.

If the news report does get something wrong it can be classed
as misleading to their audience and this could lose them
viewers also. Although you could argue that the news can
manipulate what they actually broadcast to make it more
entertaining for the viewer, they might not broadcast every
single bit of news because some stories might be more
interesting than others so they purposely leave some stories
out so they get more viewers because they are broadcasting
more entertaining news stories rather than boring ones.

(Continued)
Although a news report could leave some stuff out and show a
different side of the truth this is called being mediated.

For example the notion of truth
is so important to this news clip
about the London riots because
if it wasn’t truthful it could be
misleading for the people. For
example if they reported everything
is fine where the Tottenham riot was
and it really wasn’t and someone
goes thinking it’s safe they could
be liable because they’ve basically
lied and put someone in danger. I chose
this clip because it fits well in with my
example, because the riots were a dangerous
time and being truthful to protect someone
would be important to the news and to the audience as well because it saves
the news being in trouble and saves the audience as well.

How does the news relate to the truth?
Most of the news we see today is truthful and because the
news is renowned to be truthful and mainly always has been
very truthful. Although the news mainly always tells the
truth it can be mediated like I talked about in a slide
before. So the news can still tell the truth but leave out
some things maybe but this can change the perception of the
story to some people so can misleading. So you can say
they’re telling the truth but they can change the perception
of the story by leaving out certain things.

How can the truth be altered in editing?
While editing the news the editor could leave things out on
purpose to create a different perception on the story. For
example they could leave out certain bits to make it look
different.

For example in this news clip above it has 3 different people
speaking in 3 different speaking type of scenarios about the
syrian refugees. They seem to cut off the interviews at
different points so you don’t know what they say after so
they could create a different story with what they said after
or probably before. I used this clip and found it useful
because it had bits where it ut the voice off

How are the participants or subject represented in the
news extract you have chosen?
How could this affect the viewer's perception of events?

How are the participants or subject represented in the
news extract you have chosen?
In the first news extract (the video on the left) we see a
very one sided news story about a boy who appears to be
bullying another boy and then he gets his comeuppance. But in
the second news story (the video on the right) shows an
interview with the apparent bully saying that the kid who
body slammed him was bullying him first and provoked it so
from depending whichever news broadcast the audience watched
they could get different perceptions and portrayals of the
boy. For example in the left video the smaller boy is
portrayed as the attacker and bullier whereas in the video
on the right he is more portrayed as a victim. This could
make the audience feel sorry for him or they could dislike
him depending on what news story they watched.

Do any of the issues in your glossary exist in your news
report?
I think the news report I have used earlier showing the
australian bully has a bad balance on it (the left hand
video). This is because it shows the bullied person as a hero
standing up for himself so you could also argue that it is
bias as well towards the bullied person just showing one side
of the story which is bad balance. To make it even fairer
they should of got both sides of the story but they only got
one to make it more entertaining and it does seem like
they’re being biased towards the ‘bullied’ person.

Do any of the issues in your glossary exist in your news
report?
Whereas in the video clip to the right shows more of a bias
towards the smaller boy who is apparently the bully. They use
the words ‘brutal body slam’ to describe what happened to him
and ‘still sporting the wounds from his fight’ makes us feel
kind of sorry for him because he was in pain so creates a
biased side towards him because of the pain he went through.
In the news report on the right they have two interviews on
the story that give an opinion on what happened for example
the boy’s father has an opinion and so does the blonde woman
on what happened.

Mediation in relation to the News*
News sometimes tries to use this term mediation by having two
people from two opposing parties or ways of life for example
the news may get an interview with someone who has been in
the public eye lately and they may get a video interview with
them trying to explain themselves with the news presenter
being the mediator. This is mediation in the way that it then
could resolve a problem because the person has explained him
or herself to the public.

Mediation in relation to the news*
Another meaning of mediation is the stages of the news people
go through to get the stories they do show on the news.
Mediation has three stages:
Stage one - This is where the information is gathered by the
journalists and editors (facts, opinions, interviews, vox
pops, photos etc e.g.all the elements that make up a news
article/broadcast) Then they make decisions on what to
include they normally pick the most newsworthy news stories
and any stories that don’t seem biased.

Mediation in relation to the news*
Stage two - This is where everything they have selected to be
news stories get constructed into a recognisable media
product. For news on TV it would be something like editing
the news footage to go on with the presenter’s news script.
Stage three - This stage is all about getting the target
audience to look at the story in a certain way and is the
main reason why stages 2&1 exist. They do this to possibly
create a certain emotional response and or to get us to see
one or both sides of an argument or support or no support a
certain political agenda.

Documentaries Introduction
I have chosen two documentaries to talk about, Interview With a Poltergeist
which was aired on Channel 4 in 2007 and Murder Games: The life and death of
Breck Bednar which was released on the 26th of January 2016 on BBC Three. The
director of Interview With a Poltergeist is Nick Freand Jones. The director of
Murder Games: The life and death of Breck Bednar is Katharine English.
You can find both clips here,Murder Games: The life and death of Breck Bednar
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03cgtx5/murder-games-the-life-and-death-
of-breck-bednar
Interview with a poltergeist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rDzKIZGUL0

What are the main themes of the documentaries?
•The main themes in an interview with a poltergeist are
interviews, re-enactments, narration and also the documentary
is trying to inform us. The documentary is basically trying
to show what happened to the family in the clearest way
possible and covering all of these themes are helping to
portray the story clearer. The interviews with the people who
‘saw’ what happened try to give us first hand experience from
people who were actually there so they’re trying to make it
more believable for us and trying to get us to side with it
being truthful, it is almost like an expert’s opinion on the
truth of the story. For...

(Continued)
example we have an interview with Maurice Grosse at 12:22
this gives the audience first hand information.

(Continued)
The main theme of Murder Games are narration, dramatization
and interviews. They use this to try tell the story more and
reveal more about the story. They use a narrator to tell the
story to make it make more sense to the viewer. They use
dramatization to re-enact the events and to give the viewer
more of an idea what has happened. The interviews give us
more of a first hand account of what happened and makes it
more believable but adds an opinion of someone else to give
it a balance. For example

What tendency do the documentaries have?
The documentary has these four tendencies:
to record, reveal or preserve
to analyze
to express

The first tendency I will talk about is to record, reveal or
preserve. The first documentary I will talk about is An
interview with a poltergeist. In this documentary i think
they’re trying to reveal and preserve the events of ‘The
Enfield Haunting’ by recording this documentary. The enfield
haunting the case the ‘interview with a poltergeist’ was
based on was one of the most documented poltergeist cases
during the 80’s but has died down recently so this
documentary has preserved its memory. For example the
interview with Maurice at

The tendency for the Murder Games documentary is to reveal
and to analyze what happened with the Case. The case was just
broadcasted over the news but not massively in 2014 but BBC
has made a documentary of what actually happened and this
would give more detail then a short 2-3 minute news clip. It
has interviews with relatives of the boy to give us more of
an insight about him and this is revealing to us what he was
like. They also have interview with experts that go over
information of the case so this is the ‘to analyze’ bit of
the documentary. For example at 52:03 in the documentary we
can see someone who worked on the case talking about it.

This is the example of a woman analyzing what has happened.
So this this gives tendency of ‘to analyze’ in this
documentary.

What style are the documentaries?
Both of the documentaries I have chosen are dramatization
documentaries. We can tell this in ‘Interview with a
poltergeist’ from 1:52 in the documentary when it recreates
what actually happened because it was not recorded so they
create what they think it would of looked like. In this they
recreated a scene with the two girls when the activity
started happening and do they this at various different times
throughout the documentary. Murder Games: The life and death
of Breck Bednar does the same as Interview with a poltergeist
but with not as much recreation as it. It still is a
dramatization though. It could also be classed as a reflexive
documentary because it shows at some points how….

What style are the documentaries? (Continued)
the documentary is filmed for example at 1:39 we can see the
camera crew and how they’re setting up the interview. It is
said the filmmakers ‘make no attempt to hide aspects of it’s
construction’. Specially at the starting stages of this
documentary there are lots of shots of the camera crew
setting up and of the camera.

What style are the documentaries? (Continued)
This is an example of them showing how the documentary’s
equipment was set up.

Is there an agenda?
I think the agenda of ‘interview with a poltergeist’ is to
try and expose more about the enfield poltergeist to try and
see if it was true or not and try get a balanced source of
information from both sides for and against. They basically
used archive footage to tell the story of it with a narrator
over it and dramatization so I think the agenda was mainly to
tell the story more and to try reveal it more and to see if
it was true. I think the twin agenda was to ask the audience
the question whether they thought it was true or not so it
made them question the documentary case.

Documentary Clips
Interview With a Poltergeist

Ethics risk and Adversary: What would you do if a
subject reveals things to you that they later regret
sharing?
If the documentary has already been posted online or on TV it
could possibly be too late to stop anything from happening to
them but if they do later regret sharing information it’s up
to the documentary maker if they do share it or not on their
documentary. It mainly depends what type of person they’re
whether they do it for their documentary to look good or they
actually don’t want the person to get into trouble for what
they shared. In an interview with Werner Herzog he talks
about how a camera was accidentally filmed during the death
of two people in a documentary and he said you have the
responsibility as a filmmaker...

What would you do if a subject reveals things to you
that they later regret sharing? (Continued)
not to show it because you would have violated the right and
the death of the two people and this just shows if things are
maybe not meant to be shown, as a documentary maker maybe you
shouldn’t put it in the film. If people do add stuff in the
subject rejects sharing you could use it still but it could
give the documentary a bad name and also the maker of the
documentary which people do not want. Even if it is important
to the film i’m sure one piece of information won't spoil a
documentary massively. If the filmmaker was to rely on one
piece of information the documentary would surely be very
short. Even if it’s important to the film I still don’t think
you should show it

that they later regret sharing? (Continued)
to save the dignity of the person who has already helped you
by giving you information for the documentary. Nothing could
justify the damage done to the subjects life because they’ve
agreed to film for you so surely just having a good
documentary would outweigh what damage you could cause to
someone. Surely the person’s life is more of a priority, it
mainly depends on the documentary maker and what they’re like
as a person. Kevin Macdonald says an interview ‘it is down to
personal choice’ which is basically backing up the point that
I made.

Documentary: Skint*
I am going to talk about the documentary skint to show real
examples of ethics, risk and adversary.
From this picture on the right it
Shows the Grimsby Telegraph reporting
On the show that was set in Grimsby
Being accused over it being a ‘pover
-ty porn show’.
http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Grimsby-Skint-Producers-

Documentary: Skint*
The article just shows how documentary makers take a risk in
what they make. There is always going to be a risk that
something might happen to their documentary and cause debate.
For example in that article the documentary was being accused
of being ‘poverty porn’ which is an ethical issue. Also
another article states that one woman wants her kids to be
cut out of the series.

Documentary: Skint*
This is always a risk because if she wants her children
cutting out this could lead to a legal issue. ‘Following a letter from the
family’s lawyer, changes have already been made to the programme, which is due to air on Monday night, with some details removed
about Kayleigh’s life.’ This is a quote taken out of the article saying
that she had to get a lawyer involved to eventually make the
programme makers of Skint to involve some bits about the
woman’s life. But this plays a risk because these stories get
out into the press and gives the documentary a bad image
specially because legal action had to be taken and it
could've turned out worse for the documentary.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/24/channel-4-skint-

Documentary: Skint*
Skint has also accused of portraying ‘Grimsby’ as a bad town
and not in a fair way to what it should of been.
http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/want-town-portrayed-
national-TV/story-20439251-detail/story.html

Documentary: Skint*
This article just shows how there could be conflict between
the viewer and the documentary maker. For example people from
Grimsby and the people in the documentary think that it is a
false portrayal of Grimsby so this is showing that there is
conflict between the two. This could then lead to the
documentary getting a bad name making it lose views or even
increasing its views because of publicity but it may give it
a bad name and bad ratings and that’s not what the
documentary makers want. But the documentary makers defended
themselves by trying to say that they tried to portray
Grimsby positively but this is just a matter of opinion and
this just shows the risks documentary makers make when making
a documentary through a real life example in ‘Skint’.

that they later regret sharing? Clips
Werner Herzog Clip Kevin Macdonald Clip

Explanation of Kevin Macdonald Clip*
In the Kevin Macdonald clip he talks about how he upset someone with
a documentary he made and the person did not want to be interviewed
anymore even though he felt he did not do anything wrong. Throughout
this clip he basically says when you’re making a documentary there’s
always going to be the issue that you may upset people or you may
tread on sensitive issues but if you are a documentarian you aren’t
the purest of people and you may have to risk being insensitive and
risk offending people to be a good documentarian because if you
don’t really your film isn’t a real portrayal and being outgoing and
and having no boundaries makes you get the best stuff and if you
don’t want to upset or offend people you won’t be a very good
documentarian.

Explanation of Werner Herzog Clip*
In the Werner Herzog clip he has a very opposing idea to what
Kevin Macdonald clip. Even though his examples are quite
extreme he basically says you shouldn't add something in that
violates people. Especially like the death of the people like
he was talking about it is just immoral to add something in
like that. He is basically saying you have a right as a
filmmaker to see if something's wrong then not to add it
because it may violate people and I think he is trying to say
if people do add bits into their documentary that violates
people then they are morally wrong and they shouldn’t do
things like that; it is basically greed.

Comparison of both clips*
Both clips have opposing ideas where Kevin Macdonald thinks
you have to risk offending and hurting people to be a good
documentarian but then Werner Herzog thinks if something does
hurt or offend people then you shouldn’t add it so both
people have two different mindsets to it. In my opinion I
agree with both people in some ways, but there is a certain
line that you just shouldn’t cross to what you put in and I
think most people would be able to see this line that some
footage may cross so as documentarians I think they should
see the line.

What are the risks to a filmmaker when making these
films?
If the filmmaker goes into the field for example on an
interactive documentary like Louis Theroux’s Behind Bars
where he goes into a prison he is risking his own life to get
footage for the documentary. He had to wear a stab proof vest
while walking through the prison so he didn’t get hurt and
had to be protected by a guard at all times. If there was a
swarm of prisoners who managed to break out he would be the
main priority to get out but still his life wouldn’t be
totally protected and there is no guarantee. There is a risk
that the filmmaker could get in trouble if they lie to the
subject like saying they have switched the camera off when
really they haven’t and obtaining information off them

films? (Continued)
which they don’t want to be shared so this puts the filmmaker
at risk if they use this information because if then the
subject gets hurt or killed because of this information it
could give them a bad name and also put them in trouble for
what they’ve caused. They could obtain wrong information also
so this could damage their image as a documentary maker
making it hard for them to pursue a career in documentary
making. Kevin Macdonald also says in his interview (the clip
above 2 slides above) that ‘when you’re using people’s lives
as raw material, you’re going to trend on some real sensitive
issues and you’re going to upset people. In my opinion I
think the documentary maker should go into filming a ...

films? (Continued)*
documentary with the mindset that some footage you obtain you
may not have to use so you should prepare and get more
footage that you need and you should be prepared to have lots
of setbacks specially on a sensitive case you are documenting
because people may not like the way you’re portraying them
and may refuse to do help you anymore. He also says you have
to ‘risk being insensitive and you have to risk offending’.
Kevin Macdonald in this quote is basically saying that you
need to risk offending and being insensitive people to get
the best footage for your documentary and you can’t be weak
when making these decisions else you could lose some good
footage.

films? (Continued)*
He also is saying that if you don’t add them in you aren’t
really a good documentarian so when making these films there are
always risk of hurting or offending people because they might
not like what you are putting into your film, but this is not
everyone so you might have to risk hurting a few people to make
other people happy with your content. So in order to make a good
film you might have to hurt few to appeal to more with adding
the footage that may only hurt a few. Hurting fewer rather than
more people seems like the best way to go about it in my opinion
and also it looks like in Kevin Macdonald’s people. This may
give you as a documentarian but i'm sure the good work outweighs
the risks.

films? (Continued)*
But he also really says if you’re in your rights and if you
feel you haven’t done anything morally wrong to upset them
then there is no problem. He also says not everyone is really
pure when it comes to making them films because everyone
knows sometimes they may add something they shouldn’t of done
but sometimes there is a line you do not cross and as long as
you don’t cross this then it’s fine. This then leads me onto
the point of Werner Herzog in the clips above when he says
you have the right as a filmmaker not to add immoral things
in your documentary for example he had sound of people
getting killed in his documentary but he knew it was morally
wrong if he added it so he didn’t. This

films? (Continued)*
Is saying that if you know something is morally wrong don’t
add it and we can all see as human beings if and if not it is
morally wrong.

Where can there be a risk and conflict between the
filmmaker and subject?
The filmmaker could be too pushy sometimes with what
questions he asks to the subject specially if it is a tender
topic what they’re asking about and the subject may not like
this and then want to stop the interview and want all the
footage deleted. Then this could cause conflict between the
two. Also like in my earlier point the filmmaker could use
information what the subject later regrets sharing so this
could cause conflict and it could give the filmmaker a bad
name. Also the filmmaker could give out information which
they weren't suppose to so the subject could sue them for
what they did and this could be dangerous for the filmmaker.

Where can there be a risk and conflict between the
filmmaker and subject? (Continued)
Kevin Macdonald also talks about he had conflict between him
and one of his subjects saying that the subject didn’t want
some stuff releasing about him because he thought Kevin
Macdonald was portraying him badly so he didn’t want to do
anymore interviews with him or release any more things about
him even though Kevin Macdonald had a contract with him but
he released it anyone and he said he let other people decided
whether he was wrong so he took the risk.

What are the risks involved in trying to tell a story what
someone else doesn’t want to be told?
For example in this video Catherine Martin says ‘people seem
to forget it but it’s still there’ and she is talking about
the camera so it can show people can say things they don't
mean to and don’t want to be told.

someone else doesn’t want to be told? (Continued)
For example if someone said something about a stereotypical
group of people in a bad manner this could have a negative
effect and may upset people. If the documentary ‘Skint’ just
focused on portraying people as bad all the time in that
certain area and had people slating the area that they have
used this could upset the area. It could also give them a
negative representation to the world even though the area
might not be that bad at all they’ve just chose the bad parts
to film. This could lead the audience to think it is a bad
area and may put them off going to the area. This could then
backfire if the people in the area begin to make claims
against the documentary and the channel it was broadcasted on
and the producer of the documentary.

someone else doesn’t want to be told? (Continued)
People could then be complaining about the producer and the
channel giving the channel a bad name for false portrayal of
something which is a risk to the company. If the director
uses something they were not meant to film the subject could
be entitled to sue the producer of the documentary if they
put it in because they were not meant to film it.

Why is the notion of truth so important to
documentary?
For example in this interview with Alanis Obomsawin she says
‘they want to hear it said a certain way or certain words and
once they hear this they’re satisfied so that the person who
is affected by a certain story doesn't have the time to tell
its story the way it should be told’. She’s basically saying
once the filmmaker have got what they want they can edit it
in a certain way to give it a different perception even if
the person hasn’t finished the story they can edit it to make
it sound different.

Why is the notion of truth so important to
documentary? (Continued)
So I think the notion of truth is so important to documentaries
is because documentaries are renowned for the truth. Even if
they are still broadcasting the truth they could edit it to
make it sound different to give it a different story which is
quite bad but it still happens. For example in my documentaries
they’re both cases on what has happened in the past. If the
documentaries aren’t truthful they then become unreliable and
it doesn’t tell the full story properly, specially when it’s a
sensitive subject if they lie on the documentary people may
find this upsetting and may take action. So being truthful in a
documentary is very vital to keep the audience interested and
happy because you want it to be a reliable well known source of
information.

How does filming relate to the truth? How does Nick
Broomfield try to show his audience the truth of an
encounter?
Filming relates to the truth because what you’re filming
right there and then is actually happening and it isn’t a
special camera that changes whatever is happening it is
recording what we can see with our eyes so it is truthful.
Nick Broomfield tries to show his audience the truth of an
encounter by showing something for what it really is.

How does filming relate to the truth? How does Nick
Broomfield try to show his audience the truth of an
encounter? (Continued)
For example in this video he
says it sometimes affects
how good an interview can go
if he asks the question so
if he just leaves the
subject to talk the
interview goes better so he
doesn’t affect what comes
out of there mouth and it is
more of the truth he could
change what they say by
asking them questions.

For example in this video Claire Simon says that editing ‘is
a lie that hides itself’. She’s basically saying you can edit
something to make it look different to what it actually is so
it tells a different story but the documentary makers know
it’s a lie but we don’t as an audience because when we view
documentaries we go into it thinking everything we see is
true because of this word ‘documentary’ and the connotations
involved with it.

How are the participants or subjects represented in
each documentary you have chosen?
In interview with a poltergeist they represent Janet to be a
troubled girl at the time with what was going on this could
make the audience feel sorry for her. But they also try make
it a balanced documentary for getting a side where they say
what happened was fake from newspaper reports so this could
make the audience feel that Janet is a ‘liar’ which creates a
negative representation on her. In Murder Games they
represent Lewis Daynes as a bad person and they give him a
negative representation but by doing this they give Breck
Bednar a weak and vunreable representation because Lewis
killed Breck but this may not be the true identity of Breck
he could of been strong but this is the way the documentary
has represneted Breck in the re-enactments they do.

How are the participants or subjects represented in
each documentary you have chosen?(Continued)
They make him look weak in the re-enactments by showing him
as easily manipulated by Lewis Daynes over the games so this
is putting a negative representation on both of them in a
way. They make Breck’s friends look stronger than him by
having interviews with them where they say they stopped being
friends with Lewis before Breck and they sussed onto who he
really was before Breck.

Do the issues on your glossary exist in the
documentaries you have watched?
For example in Murder Games I think they’re biased to Breck’s
side of the story rather than Lewis’s. In documentaries about
events that have happened I think the should show both sides
of the story whereas in this they didn’t they only said a
little
bit about Lewis’s past life and
only focused mainly on Breck.
This does not give us any
indicatio why he could of done it..

documentaries you have watched? (Continued)
This could make the viewer question the documentary a bit and
maybe think it isn’t reliable if it doesn’t show an equal
balance of the two sides of the story it makes it look biased
if there isn’t a balance, so yes balance could be another
issue. There are lots of opinions from Breck’s family members
but this could not be an issue because they aren’t really
controversial and they’re what you’d expect from them. There
also could be privacy issues as Breck’s and Lewis’s life have
been put on display possibly without too much permission
regarding on what they can put.

documentaries you have watched? (Continued)
For interview with a poltergeist I don’t think there are enough
professional interviews claiming that they could be lieing it is
only really news reports from telegraphs that they talk about in
short detail. So this creates another issue of balance there isn’t
enough evidence proving it could be wrong it only talks about the
events itself and showing what happened but with no follow up to
back up what they’re showing. I also think this could leave the
viewer questioning if the information the documentary has obtained
is real or not specially with a subject of ‘ghosts’ it isn’t a
massive issue all around the world and many people believe the
subject of ghosts aren’t real at all so it kind of gives the
documentary a slight bad representation on how professional it is.

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