Staged Video and Photos in Journalism

Kayla McLeod

km891517@ohio.edu

 

A photo or video can often make a story. 

In an age where media is readily available and consumers' attention spans become shorter and shorter, sometimes a photo associated with an article can be the only thing a reader pays attention to. The media associated with an article can absolutely mean more than the article itself. 

Of course, there is the problem of Photoshop and manipulating photos and editing videos of live events to make something seem different. However, another huge problem in the journalism world, some may argue, is staging photos or videos. This can make an entire event happen that did not even remotely happen. 

A way that journalists can take this to the extreme, in my opinion, is staging scenes in documentaries. Since documentaries are advertised as documenting a real story, they should be just as happened. Often, though, documentary filmmakers will stage scenes to make the content better. This happens especially with nature documentaries. 

Depicting events that did not happen in news articles is obviously unethical. However, even though documentaries can be considered a form of journalism, documentary filmmakers are not held to the same standards as journalists. 

A perfect example of this is the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. In the film Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore it's unveiled that the famous liberal documentary maker staged or used deliberate editing to manipulate the story. 

Picture source: Hbomax.com

                                                                       

Even though the documentary revealing these lies is well sourced and tells valuable info about Moore's credibility, it received a lot of bad reviews. Many say that even though he staged a few scenes for dramatics, it got the documentary into the mainstream and informed people about important political issues. 

This is why journalists and documentary makers alike probably manipulate photos. They are hoping that their readership or viewership skyrocket. But shouldn't the truth be more important? Somehow, it seems Michael Moore has gotten away with it.