Factual programme production techniques for television 

In this assignments I will be talking about the different techniques and cliches of the factual programming industry as well as there importance to the industry in terms of impact and effectiveness. I will be talking about the issues that face documentary makers. I will be talking about the different conventions that have placed a firm role in the making of documentaries and how they effect the documentary as a whole.

Issues 

Many issues surround factual programs such as accuracy, balance, biased, subjectivity, objectivity and opinions all of these can effect the factual program in one way or another. Most effect the impartiality of the programming which can cause harm and offence to the viewers especially if the documentary is inaccurate and puts across false information. 

Accuracy 

This can be the most harmful issue surrounding factual programming especially if it is a documentary or a news broadcast as it can re enforce false stereotypes or tell the story incorrectly putting someone else under harm from the public breaking libel law.

An example of a false news report was the wrong suspect of the Boston marathon bombing. The inaccurate report was blamed on a rush of time to get the story out first and questionable sources.  Four people were broadcasted as suspects by major news channels, however these people weren't suspected by the police and non of this information about the 'suspects' were from legitimate sources.

I used these sources for my information

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cnn-boston-marathon-bombing-mistake-441551
http://theweek.com/articles/465307/4-innocent-people-wrongly-accused-being-boston-marathon-bombing-suspects

Another example was the report on the  Colorado shooting in Aurora. The report said that the culprit was connected to the tea party which was false and had to be corrected at a later date on live air.
The confusion was made because one Jim Holmes had a association with the tea party but it wasn't the same Jim Holmes. He later stated this.

"An earlier report that I had was incorrect that he was connected with the Tea Party in fact that’s a different Jim Holmes," he said. "He was not connected to the Tea Party and what we do know about him is he is a 24 year old white male who went to Colorado for a PHD." 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/oops-abc-news-3-big-reporting-errors-this-month-2012-8#ixzz3Xx8C03JAThis link has a video with the news report as well as the correction made.
http://www.businessinsider.com/oops-abc-news-3-big-reporting-errors-this-month-2012-8?IR=T

Biased 

A problem with the factual programming industry is peoples biased opinions on certain subjects. For example a documentary can come across as biased in the way it presents the facts or the story or even which facts they chose to show. Stuff like propaganda is filled with peoples biased opinions. 

Here is an example of bias in the news during the run up to the latest US election. The video points out the different ways the news points out irrelevant facts about Mitt Romney in a attempt to sway the public's opinion on the presidential applicant. The reporter paint President Obama in a much better light making him a sympathetic figure as well as ignoring other facts about his personal history.

Subjectivity/Objectivity

In the factual programming subjectivity can be mistaken for objectivity and vice versa. The factual programming industry has to be careful when presenting a opinion in a way that doesn't make it look like a fact. The reason this is an issue is that the consumers could get the wrong idea of a subject because they have been led to believe that it is a fact.

Codes and conventions in the factual programming industry

A lot of different techniques of presenting information is copied and pasted across the different formats of factual programming whether it be interviews, the way reporters address the camera, the different types of shots used in documentaries and news reports. 

Studio news readers

Studio news readers have become an essential part of broadcasting news so much that some have become famous individual and in some cases infamous. The news readers job is to present information through a verbal speech telling the viewer the news story. A studio news reader is normally stationed in the studio as opposed to a field reporter.

How do they effect the audience?

The studio news reader is a vital part because it arguably has the most effect on the audience because they are speaking for the majority of the time whether it be addressing the camera directly or narrating  over graphs or other pieces of visual information. 

Bill O' Reilly is a studio news reader at fox news in america he is known for doing a lot of interviews and debates with a number of different people on a number of different subjects. He has become a rather infamous individual figure during his time reporting news. 

Alastair Stewart is a british news presenter for ITV news. It is his job as a presenter to present the news to the public. He also moderated the first election debate in 2010.

Field reporters 

Field reporters are like studio news readers in the sense that they present the latest news stories to the public, however they differ in both the level of detail and the location that they present the the news. Field reporters go out to the location of the latest news story and tell the story with some more detail from that locations. Field reporters normally gather information from the local scene which gives more insight on the story.

Here is a video showing different examples of field reporting. This video focuses on showing how field reporters bring sports news to the news broadcast.

How do they effect the audience? 

A field reporters main job is to provide more detail on a news story. They effect the audience by showing the audience a bit more detail and the scene of the current situation. 

Interviewing/Experts and witnesses 

Interviews are common place in the news and documentaries. Interviews are used to either provide a different perspective on a topic or to provide a professional opinions and information on the subject. Sometimes interviews can be conducted in a vox pox fashion with lots of bystanders giving their opinion on the subject.

How does it effect the audience?

Interviews serve to give the audience a different perspective and more detail on the subject at hand. Interviews can help to tell the story in a documentary format. 

This interview shows a opinion on a subject from a random bystander at the scene of the report. The interview serves to show someone else's perspective.

This interview works as a sort of mini documentary by telling the story through a big interview mixed with some live footage.

Report structure 

The report structure is the format in which news and other pieces of information is presented in a broadcast context. Certain conventions have become staples in modern news broadcasting. These things vary in importance, whether it be the way the presenter presents himself, his/her posture, language and dress code or maybe the use of graphics to show people and graphs for different visual statistics. 

This video points out all of the different codes and conventions used in today's British news industry.

The basic structure for a news report is an introduction of the presenter and the story. Then at the scene more detail will given on the issue or the story. After that a mic of facts and interviews of people on the street about the issue/story then maybe a interview of someone effected directly by the issue/story, The report normally ends with some sort of question.

Documentary formats 

Realism/dramatisation

Something that documentary produces have to be careful of keeping the documentary realistic and not dramatizing the story. The idea of a documentary is to tell a real life story and for that story is to be grounded to reality so produces must make sure it doesn't become more of a film adaptation of a true story. Sometimes stories are told through docudramas instead of documentaries which is usually keeps the essential points of the story but  exaggerates certain points to make it more interesting to an audience. 

Narrativisation 

Documentaries can tell lots of different stories about different people, locations or events. Some documentaries tell the life story of individual people or the story of a famous musician and shows how their career came to be and how it has progressed. A lot of documentaries focus on a big subject instead of focusing on an individuals story, for example documentaries about different aspects of world war one and two are very popular.

This documentary is about the band avenged sevenfold and tells the story about how they formed the band and how the band started to get more popularity as the years went on. The documentary focuses more on the band as a whole instead of focusing on one individual in the band.

This documentary is about a certain aspect of the second world war (a submarine) instead of talking about how the war progressed as a whole. This works because there are lots of different aspects of world war two that can be covered in detail.