In any relationship, trust is a key component to maintaining good faith. Documentary is no different. 

Documentarians have been long aligned with journalists, although there is a definite distinction between the two. In terms of ethics, journalists have a clear set of social, ethical guidelines that assist in maintaining responsibility in the public, media landscape. Their guidelines enable the journalist to evenly, and without biased, portray who and what they are reporting. Documentarians have less of an outline of their ‘rights and wrongs,’ so to speak.

Being such an individually formed aspect of media, documentary has evolved as an individual practice. Documentary tends to diverge from larger news corporations and/or public affairs and forms its own, personalised media practice.

Journalists have a pre-established set of practices concerned with ethical behaviour. In the field of journalism, there is a set of standards and guide-lines about the responsibilities and consequences of spreading of knowledge and information into the public sphere. Documentary is a different story. As documentary is such an evolving field of media, it is difficult to construct a set of ethical rules for documentarians to follow. Quiet often, documentarians reject the idea that they are journalists – they are unrestricted by the responsibilities that journalists find themselves chained to. Documentarians tend to openly acknowledge their point of view, and through their works, subjectivity will prevail (Bernard and Rabin 2009, 148).

In saying this, documentary is not removed from the practice of maintaining integrity to ones subject, audience, or sponsors. It is the role of a documentarian to ensure good faith and trust is enforced. Trust is crucial to any project where documentary is known and remarked for its real, honest communication. These expectations are based on the historical and evolving features of documentary. Documentary is truth – documentary is action.

 

References: 

  • Ethical Challenges of Documentary: Patricia Aufderheide (2014)

  • Aston, Judith, and sandra Gaudenzi. 2012. “Interactive documentary: setting the field.” Studies in Documentary Film no. 6 (2):125-139

  • Bernard, Sheila Curran, and Kenn Rabin. 2009. Archival storytelling : a filmmaker’s guide to finding, using, and licensing third-party visuals and music. Amsterdam ;Boston: Focal Press.

  • Ravitch, Diane. 2010. “The myth of charter schools.” New York Review of Books no. 57 (17). http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charterschools/?pagination=false.