Stand by for two reports on recent "scandals" in the world of documentaries, one an independent inquiry commissioned by the BBC, the other commissioned by ITV. To recap: independent producers RDF made a series for the BBC called A Year With the Queen, in which they secured unprecedented access to the Queen. The BBC paid them for this series, but considerably less than it cost to make. RDF needed to sell the series to make up the difference and, to this end, its creative director, Stephen Lambert, cut a short "taster tape" to show to a handful of foreign potential buyers. Subsequently, the BBC asked RDF for a tape to use at the press launch of its autumn schedule and a copy was handed over. When shown to the press, the tape appeared to show the Queen storming out of a photo-shoot with Annie Leibovitz; whereas the scene—in which the monarch is undoubtedly grumpy—actually took place before the photo-shoot. Unfortunately, the controller of BBC1, Peter Fincham, was not aware of this and at the press launch drew attention to the fact that the Queen, in the words of a subsequent BBC press release, "left the sitting prematurely."
It is important to get these facts straight, because some papers have talked about the "mis-edited documentary" when the documentary itself shows the scenes in the correct order. The film has been seen by Buckingham Palace officials, who raised no objection to it. In other words, this whole scandal—portentously and ludicrously dubbed "Queengate" by some papers—is about a) whether Stephen Lambert should have edited the taster tape for his foreign buyers in the way he did; b) whether RDF was clear about the content of the tape when it gave it to the BBC and c) how the BBC came to use it at the press conference. These are interesting questions, but they do not amount to a crisis in British broadcasting.
Then there is the case of veteran film-maker Paul Watson and "the moment of death." Again, final judgement on who is to blame and for what will have to wait for the results of the investigation under way, but the following is known. Paul Watson has been filming Barbara and Malcolm Pointon for 11 years, as the latter suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Malcolm and Barbara: Love's Farewell is the second film he has made about the couple. It charted in graphic and disturbing detail the final years and days of Malcolm's life. Promoting the film, ITV's press department said the film showed the moment of Malcolm's death. Soon it became clear that the film did not show this—it showed the moment he lost consciousness, to die a few days later. The issues are again quite simple: a) did Watson tell ITV that the film showed the moment of death (the original voiceover is ambiguously worded and open to both interpretations); and b) when ITV put this phrase in a press release, did Watson approve the press release? Again, like A Year With the Queen, the issue is not the film, but the way it is marketed.
Despite this, both cases have been turned into evidence for a crisis in documentary-making. The BBC has sent out anguished emails asking suppliers to identify programmes made over the last two and a half years which "may carry a risk that in some way audiences could have been misled." Just in case anyone has forgotten, television programmes are edited. Scenes are shot to make the story-telling easier, music is added to heighten the emotional impact, the order of events is changed to hold your interest. For example, when Newsnight has an item about the budget and the chancellor of the exchequer is shown reading papers in his office, surely no one believes he is really reading them? It's an establishing shot to help cover a section of voiceover. When, in documentaries, the action cuts from scene to scene, does anyone think that these scenes were taking place at the same time and in that order? I very much doubt it. Even newspapers do it: journalists turn their interviewees' incoherent ramblings into sense—thank goodness.
Much of what we read, hear and watch has been constructed for us—it is not a precise record of what has been said or of what happened. Does that make it "untrue"? This issue is much debated by programme-makers, and while some things clearly fall on the wrong side of the line (making someone say the exact opposite of what they meant, for example), in many cases it is unclear where the line is. In the past, a good rule of thumb has been: would the contributor feel they have been misrepresented or would the average viewer, appraised of the facts, feel they had been mislead? (Barbara Pointon, by the way, approved Watson's programme.) Under this system, programme-makers had to make a judgement—but in so doing they had to take responsibility. It also, of course, gave them the freedom to make interesting and watchable programmes.
Britain has one of the most media-literate populations in the world. But at the moment it also has, apparently, a lot of people who are losing trust in television. One way of dealing with this is to set up a lot of prescriptive guidelines; another is to explain how documentaries are really made. The second involves more effort, but it treats the audience more seriously. One hopes that broadcasters will rise to this challenge in the next few months, not pander to the hysteria whipped up by a press whose own record on telling the truth leaves quite a lot to be desired.
