Ethics in Documentary

After watching segments of two controversial documentaries: Frederick Wiseman's "Titicut Follies" and the Maysles Brothers' "Grey Gardens.", Here are my thoughts about the following:

1. What (if any) are the ethical dilemmas faced by both filmmakers when shooting these documentaries?

First they must decide the value of the content of the documentary in relation to the cost. These documentaries portray people who are not necessarily in the state of mind that would understand what they are consenting to reveal, if they do consent, or what the documentary will be used for or shown to. In regard to the mental health facility, one has to decide if and where it is ethical to use considerably troubling footage of the nature of the goings-on of that facility. Is it justified by the intent of the video? Is it not justified because some of those featured did not consent to the use of their images; or were not mentally capasitated to make that decision?

2. Should they have used all of the footage or only some of it? How should that be determined?

I think they should choose footage tactfully, but without compromising the integrity of the story. Journalists should consider the shock factor versus the need-to-know of the audience, and try to find a medium that gives the story in full with as little injury or insult as possible.

3. What would you do as a journalist or documentary storyteller?

I would determine the necessity of controversial information or footage to presenting the story. I would not censor important footage or information because some consider it disturbing or distasteful. However, I also would not include such footage for sensational purposes when it is not necessary to portray the story.

News Wars

In 2007 the PBS show Frontline produced a multi-part series "News War" which investigated many facets of news as it adapts to changing media outlets and demands. This blog is a reflection and response to "Part 3" (segments 16-25) which focuses on the changing relationship between the internet, news-consumers, news owners and traditional news media.

(I know this is more than the three paragraphs required; sorry, I just had more to write)

Traditional news has reached a point where survival is becoming increasingly dependent on it ability to branch out across media. Traditionally, news was what you needed to know combined with what you wanted to know. It was organized, fairly weighted information for the consumer to digest and act upon. Reporters were not the "face" of news, they were the medium through which it was provided to the public.

In this era of citizen journalism, instant feed information, celebrity journalism and multi-media sourcing, "news" is blurring and shifting with "entertainment" because the line between need and want is blurring and shifting.

Traditional journalism is dying because the demand and respect for it is fading, its resources are declining and, as the "Murrow" generation is slipping away, fewer journalists are entering that role. Newspapers are especially affected in two fronts: Money and demand.

Traditional consumption is declining bucause budget-cuts are reducing the quality of newspapers, people are turning to multi-media sources that are easier to control and personalize, and the "Murrow" generation is shrinking.

Advertisers are shifting their money to the web because it reaches more people and is cheaper. As newspapers become publicly owned, stocks holders are driving higher profit demands and budget cuts than in the past.

Traditional news will always have a place, it will be controlled more by consumers. Consumers want the news choices they want, when they want it, and nothing else. Most news sources have already begun the shift to on-demand availability, and those who do not will struggle to keep-up and eventually sink or swim.

I'm not exactly sure when this "news war" began, or when it will end. Advertising and for-profit-ownership have played the largest hand for the longest time, and they became really influential when the standard of journalism "as a public service" faded.

Then the consumer demand for news shifted more when the internet stepped in and offered consumers the control over when, what, how and through whom content is provided.

The news used to be controlled by the news sources. Now it is controlled by advertisers, profiteers, celebrities and most importantly, YOU. With the internet, you can create news and post it from anywhere about anything. You don't need a degree in journalism, or a production or publication crew or an editor. You can post whatever you want, and no one can stop you.

Consumers are controlling supply and demand. If the demand is not met, consumers have the power to change the supply, by creating their own. This is evident in the increasing influence bloggers have over mainstream media. Bloggers and citizen journalists have a place in journalism. They are becoming the checks and balances of mainstream media, like it is of government and business. Could this be because mainstream media is no longer run as a public service but as a business for profit itself?

Bloggers are useful, but they are not a reliable, consistant and unbiased medium. Consumers may want what they want, but someone has to make a point to inject some of what they need too.

Traditional news sources will have to find a way to adapt to this new era, but they will also need to maintain their truth-telling integrity. Perhaps citizen journalism, with its freedom from the control of advertisers and public ownership, networked through trained citizen editors, is the answer. Is it possible?

Virtual Journalism

In the era of online ‘get it now’ demand, a new immersive internet is quickly emerging as a global business and journalism tool through virtual realities like ‘Second Life.’ Erica Driver, co-founder of ThinkBalm, presented a glimpse of this virtual network as part of the Virtual Journalism Summit at Washington State University, April 6.
Driver linked her on-campus presentation live to people not physically present through a Second Life virtual replica of the campus venue. Online participants were represented by 3-D virtual people called Avatars. Online and physically present attendees interactively viewed the slideshow presentation, and offered questions and comments with text and voice chat.
Driver said the immersive internet is used by businesses as a cost-efficient alternative to in-person conventions because it eliminates travel costs and saves productivity hours.
To demonstrate the capabilities of some immersive business tools, Driver took the audience ‘in-world’ to a February 2009 3-D ThinkBalm Innovation Community brainstorming session where Avatars linked their ideas together on a visible matrix called an ideaographer or mind-map; created by Project Manager for the OU Center for Public Management, Jeff Lowe. Driver said in-world sessions are more interactive and productive than traditional phone conferences.
“When you start to see it jump from the technologists to the business people, then you know something has shifted,” Driver said.
Something has also shifted in journalism. CNN is among the news sources that are using immersive technology as a reporting venue and virtual location for press conferences and exclusive interviews.
However, Driver said this new reporting medium limits journalists from adopting immersive internet because it requires training and practice, and many journalists are not very technologically innovative. She also said that in-person interviews can provide subtle non-verbal cues that an immersive environment cannot quite mimic.
“When we get that motion-capture technology… it’s going to add so much value because I can just naturally talk the way I’m talking and my avatar mimics my emotions,” Driver said. “That will really add a lot of the emotion back into the immersive interactions.”
Virtual journalism also limits journalists’ ability to verify an avatar source’s real-life identity. Virtual world journalist Bernhard Drax said journalists can ask questions which only that person would know, double-check an avatar’s real identity through linkedin.com and email them, to confirm their identity.
Driver said this new tool is currently still more comparable to in-person interviews than phone, web conference or video because it can leverage the 3-D experience. The interviewee can walk through a virtual replica of the real world, to enhance their story.
Journalists will also be able to use immersive technology to enhance their story with an “interactive, engaging experience” that stimulates the senses in the brain, Driver said.
Driver said virtual realities like Second Life also provide journalists storyboards, a place to rehearse difficult or dangerous situations and an opportunity to deliver more or better information.
“Immersive internet will change the face of journalism during the next three to four years,” Driver said.

Sun-Sentinel Multi-Media Gallery: Story analysis

Unsung Heroes

The multi-media design of this story is a nice complement to its content. The page is clean and well laid-out. It is not too busy, and very easy to navigate.

From the main page, you click on the story. From the story page you click on any of five thumbnails. The thumbnails are not presented in layout with any one having more importance than another. They are arranged staggered, with teasers. Each thumbnail leads to a multi-media segment that is a blend of audio, video, and slide-show.

The story is about the non-teachers who make a difference in education. The story segments are split between five of these people: the lunch-lady, lot-monitor, secretary, security, and bus driver.

I think this multi-media layout fits nicely with the story because the story tells of five equally important people playing important roles in primary education. It was interesting, but not too distracting from the content.

Overall, I think the multi-media helped the story because it split the information up so that the viewer could digest each aspect of it clearly and with focus. Had it been all jumbled together in one video, it would have been choppy and difficult to follow. The layout was easy to navigate. The links worked well, the video uploaded quickly and did not skip. It was just interactive enough to tell the story and nothing more. However it might have been interesting to have some links to information about those positions, stats on the impact non-teachers have in the school system, or other interesting figures or stories; maybe links to the schools that were featured, or other things that those persons are doing.

Ambush in Haiti

At first, I really liked this story. They layout give three click-through options that are not equally weighted on the page. It entices the viewer to click on the "How it happened" option first. That one has a short teaser and an interesting photograph. The other two options were off to the right in a vertical banner: "Read Michael Laughlin's first person account" was at the top and "See more photo's from Michael Laughlin's journey back to Haiti" was below it.

The "How it happened" option navigates you to a 3-D step-by-step layout of the street where the event occurred. It uses an arrow to mark the path of the Sun-Sentinel photographer who was involved. As you advance to each point, the arrow moves, the description appears on the left narrating the events, and the diagram has photo points which you can click on to view photos taken of those spots during or right after the event. Each photo has a brief description. There is a return button which will navigate you back to where you left off in the story. The story was very interesting and the layout of this click-through definitely aided in describing the events.

When I finished the main story, I tried to click "Read Michael Laughlin's first person account," but the page is not working. I navigated back and opted for "See more photo's from Michael Laughlin's journey back to Haiti," but that page didn't work either.

It was disappointing to not get a more in-depth story, but at least I did get the basic 5 W's and how answered.

Had all of the pages been working, I suspect that I would have been really pleased with the overall effect. This is the downside to multi-media journalism--page failure which can limit the audience's clarity on the story. However, it could also be an upside, because since the story is broken up between several pages, it has a higher chance of at least one working. If it had been only a one-page story and not worked, then the viewer would have missed it all.

Overall, the layout added to the story because it provided a perspective on the event that would not have been possible with text or photos alone. The story layout was very interactive, clean and easy to navigate. It only failed on the links.

Running to the top

As she laced up her new shoes and started a series of warm-up exercises, Jamerika Haynes could not stop grinning. She lightly jogged to the starting line and bounced in anticipation of the race ahead. She turned on her iPod, looked up once and then took off running in a crowd of hundreds of other WSU community members in the Campus Run, Saturday, March 28. The 5K (3.1 mile) race was the first of several she plans to finish this year.
“If it wouldn’t have been for me answering the phone during the race I probably could’ve [finished] in a half hour,” Haynes said laughing. She completed the race with a gun time of 41 minutes.
Haynes started training in January for the Tacoma City Half Marathon set for Mother’s Day weekend in May. She said her friend has been trying to get her to do a race for three years but she never had the time or energy before.
“Now that I have the opportunity to do it, I just said ‘hey why not,’” Haynes said.
Friend Ria Buford, 26, said that attitude is what brought Haynes to this point. Haynes spent time in the foster care system before being adopted.
“I feel like she’s been through more than the majority of men and women her age, or most people of any age, with the foster-care system and so on,” Buford said. “In that sense her whole life is a marathon. She’s not trying to win it, she’s just trying to finish it and be satisfied with herself and how she performed.”
While at Tacoma Community College, Haynes earned two academic scholarships by running for Miss Pierce County. As part of her platform, she got involved in advocacy for foster children. She said she had a pretty good experience with the foster care system, but many children do not. She joined Passion to Action to help.
“It’s a youth advisory board,” Haynes said. “We went to different state functions [to] talk about experiences and make suggestions about how to help improve things for the kids.”
Haynes also started the Facebook group, “Sick and Tired of Police Brutality” in defense of Malika Calhoun—the teenager whose abuse by police was recently caught on tape, and many others who are victims of this.
Haynes wrote on the website, “I am sick and tired of these people thinking they can use citizens as target practice and punching bags.”
Buford said Haynes likes to stay involved.
“Nothing can stop her,” Buford said.
Indeed. Haynes is a broadcast journalism student who hopes one day to own her own production company with a motivational speaking component.
She said she would like to branch out too: “It’d be really nice if I could own a hair store, maybe a restaurant … and maybe work as a booking agency as well for up-and-coming talent, possibly have my own talk show.”
But she said she has get through school first.
“I want to make sure that … working with the school news station and working with my program, I can survive my internship when I get to the news station,” Haynes said. “If I can do that I’ll be happy… I’m a determined person. Whatever I put my mind to; when I start something, I finish it. I always try to be a reliable person. I always try to have a plan. That’s what got me to Wazzu considering that I have been putting myself through college for the last three years. I guess all that I can say is I’m bound and determined.”
Buford said she has no doubt in Haynes’ success in school, the marathon and beyond.
“She is very organized and very self-sufficient, practical, and resourceful, very resourceful,” Buford said. “It’s certain that she is going to do it. No matter how the training goes she is going to be in that marathon and she’s going to do the whole thing.”

Online News Stations Comparisons

Upon listening to BBC, it is subtle but evident of a bias against the U.S. capabilities. They sounded a bit condescending when talking about U.S. actions, and in reference to Middle Eastern countries. I have noticed that of several foreign new stations. The Russian station wasn't so condescending toward the U.S. but toward England instead. They specifically noted several times the degree of ethnocentrism and racism represented by the English. I was impressed with the degree of criticism they utilized in investigation of wrongs in Russia. I did not expect such clear and unbiased investigations represented of their own. They appeared to do a good job keeping practives in Russia in check.

Both stations noted on the main news storied of the day, including the protests in England, but with very different perspectives. The BBC called the protests peaceful with just a few arrests. Russia reported that several were arrested and one was killed during the protests that got very out-of-hand. Interesting censorship? Definately different perspectives on the same story. Both, although mildly, injected subtle opinion through phrasal and word-choice, into the stories.

Al Jazeera offered a different quality of news. The variety was very interesting. Rather than providing a repeating hour show that highlighted the top few stories, the station devoted substantial blocks of time to some rather in-depth stories. This was the only station that covered the Mexican and drug money problem. They were very critical of every aspect of each story. They didn't appear to take liking to any particular party.

I think the internet could be a very effective medium for Al Jazeera if they could advertise it's existence more widely. If they cannot advertise better, I do not think it will be too successful of a venue.

I think that Al Jazeera should definitly be allowed to broadcast in the U.S. I understand the concerns of those who are against it, but believe that if they actually experienced it first-hand, their minds would open. I like a news source that reports evenly on all sides, and critically so as to get the most accurate report.

Al Jazeera provided more in-depth reporting on their stories than most other news sources do during a regular news program. Their reports were very like the type of reports one would expect to hear during a more investigative program like "60 Minutes." They really provided a lot of detail in their broadcasts.

I like how well Al Jazeera complies with my journalism ethics, which also happen to be embodied in their published code of ethics. The code is well summed in the first of the list, "Adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political considerations over professional ones." Based on my observations, this news organization fares better than all of the others in relation to these guidelines. I think that this source passes the Murrow test.

WSU Participates in National Nutrition Month

By, Jenn Weldy

March is National Nutrition Month and the Washington State University Wellbeing program and dining services have partnered to launch the first “Find Your Balance Challenge” campaign across campus—one they hope will continue for years to come.
“Our goal is to give every individual an opportunity for them to find their own balance between healthy [eating] and exercise as part of their physical wellbeing,” Whitney Mueller, Staff Assistant for Dining Services, said. “We thought National Nutrition Month would be a good time for that.”
Mueller organized the program in collaboration with Dining Services’ Registered Dietitian, Annie Roe, WSU Employee Wellbeing Coordinator, Brad Stewart, and Associate Director of University Recreation, Joanne Greene. Mueller said they aren’t trying to get students to work out every day and only eat healthy food; they just want to give students tools to help them each find their personal balance.
Young adult health and wellbeing recently earned so much concern that it was noted in a special feature in the 2008 United States health report that read, “the period between ages 18 and 29 sets the foundation for future health behaviors and health status, and may be the time in life when health education and preventive care may arguably have their greatest impact.”
“I think it’s a little bit of a personal mission for all of us. We really care about that stuff so we wanted to do something for the students to show them that,” Mueller said.
The program challenges students to track their nutritional and physical habits throughout March with stamp cards, according to the WSU press release. It states that the completed cards will be entered in a raffle April 3 for several prizes, including an iPod Shuffle and cash.
Mynutrition.wsu.edu provides nutrition label information for foods offered in the dining halls, and other nutritional information. “Annie built that whole thing herself,” Mueller said about the website. Mueller said Roe has done a lot to communicate with students about new and existing healthy options on campus.
For WSU student Ronnie Fontenot, 25, wellbeing is “more than just eating right, it’s also living right, being a good person and keeping low stress.” He said that attitude and mental health influence physical wellbeing, and that’s why it is important to realize that a healthy lifestyle includes a “sharp mind not bogged down by negativity.”
WSU student Kaley Porter, 20, agrees, and said, “I feel better as a student if I am physically and emotionally content with myself.”
According to the WSU Recreation website, WSU promotes a holistic approach to wellbeing that includes emotional, environmental, financial, occupational, physical, social and spiritual dimensions.
The recreational center offers a wide variety of activities ranging from an hour to several days that challenge the mind and body, including yoga classes, rock climbing and several outdoor adventures, according to “Play,” the spring 2009 program guide for university recreation.
Gail Sterns, director of The Common Ministry at WSU led two free stress relief workshops earlier this week for all community members. According to a WSU press release for the sessions, for the last ten years, Stern has been “researching and practicing mindfulness and spiritual centering as stress relief techniques for daily life.”
The press release quoted Sterns: “in my own life, putting into practice research on waking up and becoming aware of the present is the most authentic way I have found to deal with grief and stress.”
The workshops were sponsored by The Common Ministry, Health and Wellness Services, and Counseling and Testing Services.
For information about the Find Your Balance Challenge and other wellbeing workshops and activities, visit wellbeing.wsu.edu, dining.wsu.edu and urec.wsu.edu.