Issues facing Producers of Factual Programming

Accuracy
In order to make a successful documentary, you must be accurate within your knowledge. Accuracy meaning that the information that you hold is sufficient and correct, and the output of the information of various statements as well, the public will have trust in you as the journalist or documentary maker that you are stating correct judgments on whoever it is that you are writing or speaking about. The requirements of accuracy may well vary within different genres used in ways for humour or sarcasm. Most news stations or major stream line programs such as the BBC or ITV state in their codes what accuracy is deemed as and how it should be used in the correct way. The BBC states:

I will now discuss the importance of accuracy against a case in the news or a documentary. The case that I will discuss is the Madeline Mc cann case, in 2007 a little girl called Madeline, child of parents Kate and Gerry Mc cann, was abducted from their family villa in Portugal. When the news was first headlined, the only information given was that the parents had gone out to eat and had left Madeline and her brother sleeping in their bedroom. Now as you can imagine from that piece of information that mainstreamed the news, the publics reaction was simply varied. Of course the news had shocked and upset or angered most people; however the public were quick to judge saying how wrong it was to have left 2 children on their own in a villa. Statements and news headlines were quick to come through, and so more information was released, with statements being made by the parents, pleading with the public and urging them to speak up if anyone knew the disappearance of their daughter. The information that misled the public was when a news paper was when a newspaper was released stating that police believed that the Mc canns had killed their daughter. They were alleged with this prosecution, because allegedly two Portuguese detectives had apparently found blood stains in the parents hire car, and a family representative had brought forward this statement. Following on those two detectives were removed from the case and a new one was hired because Portuguese police had reasons to believe that the parents did not contribute to their daughters death. The Mc canns were deeply hurt by the allegations and later received and accepted 550 00 and apologies from the express newspapers. The fault of accuracy that the Portuguese newspaper meant that the public were deemed to wrong information and it meant that the parents were put out there with information

on themselves that could not change until they had their chance, accuracy was very critical, and until the allegations were corrected the case was left up in the air as was everyone else.

Impartiality & Balance Requiring equality

Imagine having a scale, where an argument over say abortion is escalating, you would require two sides in order to balance the scale out, one side would be arguing for it and would most likely be a professional of the topic and the other side would be a campaigner of the topic speaking for the voices who are against it. Impartiality would bring in the sense of both sides being equal to each other. In documentaries you would need to have the balance of both sides, so say you were making a documentary on immigration in the U.K, you would need to balance it out with equal thoughts, not just of the thoughts who believe it is wrong and that it is ruining the country, but the views of people who may have different thoughts because they know of the circumstances as to why they may of had to flee. The example that I am to show is from Day Break, this a morning show, and it is a show that includes interviews with various people, from leading celebrities to campaigners or professionals within their professions. This example shows a lady, by the name of Katie Hopkins, known as a social entertainment host, alongside her another lady by the name of Anna May, a voice to be heard. This interview is about how Katie Hopkins judges children by their names; I find this example very good because you have two sides of the situation, one is her telling all about how she judges children by their names, she claims that names such as Charmaine or Tyler are names that will be deemed as unsuccessful or that as if she knows their personalities and she knows what level of class or background they are from. You could imagine how this would outrage most people, anger them, make them want to argue their points across to her, which is what Anna May does, she is from an Irish background and she argues against Katies very narrow minded views. Anna May puts up a good fight and so allows Katie to further her 1 single point really which she repetitively keeps putting across.
Please copy and paste link into internet tab to watch video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZjdgU0asM

So you see the balance and impartiality of this argument is weighed out with two sides arguing for and against. The fact we have Anna May there means we are able to take a side, it means she allows a balance; you also see that you are able to listen to both parts equally; they have a chance to do that.

Objectivity & Subjectivity

What is objectivity well it is what the objective of say a documentary is going to be, what is the objective of the documentary, what is that the documentary is trying to put across, and what should we feel after watching it. What is subjectivity, subjectivity is what the subject is, what will the documentary be about? It is important to be sure when you are making a documentary you yourself know what you are trying to objectify to your audiences, and to also know accurately what your documentary is about so that your audiences have faith in your documentary.
Copy and paste link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZSc--n2PgQ

For this documentary you would need solid facts, clearly the objective is to find out who the killer was behind the killing of his wife, the subject being who the killer was? I think that the documentary has been put together very well, they know their facts and they know what they are talking about before they put it out.

Opinion & Bias

Opinions are an important part of documentary making or newspaper articles etc. Most of the time they form the foundation for a story, because without opinions you have no real documentary or news bulletin, opinions can vary and they make the story very interesting because your then seeing what other people think. Bias opinions on the other hand are opinions that are normally quite contradicted by what they may have already said, biased opinions are neither here or there, they personal opinions of what they would usually favour when asked for their opinion. The example that I am going to be talking about for opinions and biased opinions is about the gun law in America. In the last few years the awareness of the crimes that have been committed has escalated and the Government has been questioned as to why the law has not been changed or why there is no gun control? Guns are a huge part of American history and so there was no law put across, it just simply carried on, resulting in what it has today, there is high percentage of crimes committed with guns in America and a lot of opinions that the public have to put across. I have been looking at various articles and debate websites and looking at different opinions of different people, a lot of the articles contain a good and varied balance of opinions. With a topic such as this its really important that there is gathered information on peoples opinions and what they think. Take this debate site for example:
Copy and paste link - http://www.debate.org/debates/Leave-gun-rights-the-same/1/

This site is somewhere where people from America or the general public can come together and share their thoughts and opinions. Its interesting to see what people think, some say that are completely for it and that the American government has no right to take their guns away from them meanwhile others say that there should be some form of gun control, they say that guns are not in the right hands, some people talk about how the guns are there for protection however they are not used in the correct ways. It is a very contradictive topic because a lot of people will say that it wrong for America to allow guns but then say that it

is okay because they are meant for protection, its a topic that will not settle until something is done properly about it.

Representation
What is representation? Well representation is basically how someone is represented in the media, so through newspapers, articles news and documentaries. It could either be a leading celebrity or someone in the politics; it depends on what the story is on them, from the story then media representatives will represent or misrepresent public figures in newspaper etc. The policy for the U.K. for representation in Media, states that

An untrue statement of fact or law made by Party A to Party B which induces Party B to enter a contract thereby causing Party B loss. An action for

misrepresentation can be brought in respect of a misrepresentation of fact or law. There are three types of misrepresentation: Fraudulent misrepresentation: where a false representation has been made knowingly, or without belief in its truth, or recklessly as to its truth. Negligent misrepresentation: a representation made carelessly and in breach of duty owed by Party A to Party B to take reasonable care that the representation is accurate. If no "special relationship" exists, there may be a misrepresentation under section 2(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967 where a statement is made carelessly or without reasonable grounds for believing its truth. Innocent misrepresentation: a representation that is neither fraudulent nor negligent.
I am going to talk about how Nigella Lawson was represented in newspapers and the news, Nigella Lawson known as a high end cook has been the headlines of many news stories in last 5 months or so. Nigella Lawson was represented as a drug user, she faced allegations that her two personal assistants had claimed that Nigella was a drug user. She was represented as this all over the news, headlines, and newspapers etc. Nigella Lawson makes headlines as cocaine addict, it states there on the newspaper that she has been an addict EVERY day for a decade, this is misrepresenting Nigella Lawson as there is no evidence of taking cocaine every day for decade, yes she admitted to taking it once or twice but they were her own reasons. Misrepresenting Nigella the way that they did meant that it hurt Nigella s reputation and the public would not view her in the same way as she would have been liked to.

Access & Privacy

Access is a very important part to a factual documentary or news, access allows you to do things, to meet various people, to find out more information, all in good cause for the documentary or the news. Privacy then comes in to play, say if you are doing a documentary on a crime, and you wish to interview the victim, you have had the access to do so however you must respect the boundaries of privacy, so in order to make the victim private you could dub their voice, pixel ate their faces or be in a dark room to ensure the privacy of the victim. The example that I am going to talk about is from the Royals, when Kate and Harry were expecting, and what I will focus on is when Kate went in to labour and was due at any time. There was only a limited amount of news stations allowed outside the hospital, news stations from all different countries ahd flown over just to get a glimpse for their news channels. BBC was the only UK news station to have access at the hospital, and bring live coverage on a daily basis. After she had given birth, now the privacy element, everyone wanted to know what the name was going to be, people were guessing , clues, paparazzi were out on the pry trying to get a glimpse of what they baby looked like , who could get the first photo and which newspaper would be the first to get their photo out there. So in terms of privacy boundaries I do not think that they were respected, they could have been respected a lot more than that.

Contract with Viewer

Contract with viewer means that you as the documentary maker have a liable and legal contract signed with the person that you are making the documentary on. It is important to have the contract signed and all documents signed because then it makes it easier for the documentary to carry on with its normal process.