OT: Interesting lawsuit

[David Roth weiss]

As a documentarian and journalist for longer than many readers here have been alive, I completely agree with everything Andrew has written about ethics, and most of what Tim has written, and I would never condone what the producers seemed to have allowed in this particular case. However, as I have written above, from a legal standpoint this is not a big deal, as our court system is not in place to arbitrate ethics, morals, etc. as many think, and on top of that, between provable monetary damages, legal costs, and the estimated payoff of a case like this, we’re talking peanuts.

What is more important in this discussion, which no one here has really mentioned, is the nearly complete erosion of journalistic and ethical standards in recent times created by tabloid news and opiion masquerading as journalism, Reality TV masquerading as “reality,” and a Reality TV star masquerading as a serious candidate for President of the US, who lies 70% if the time because he knows he can lie faster than he can be fact checked. These are much more serious matters than the tempest in a teapot being debated here, yet they have a serious impact on this case and on ethics in general, because they have completely degraded the line between right and wrong, desensitized the masses to such an extent that ethics are now virtually meaningless in our society.

Bottom line, we can debate ethical matters in journalism and TV all day long, but if society could care less, the courts won’t wade in on these matters unless there’s BIG money at stake.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Cherniack]

Hmmm. You seem to have missed my point, as well as my humour.

I was not arguing that there are objective documentaries. I’m in full agreement on that having made more than 60 of them. Perfect objectivity is not possible in any creative pursuit. Nevertheless the point I was making is that some documentaries are more objective than others. By not including that caveat I thought your statement lax. However if you’re insisting that they’re all equally lacking in objectivity that’s a rather extreme position because it equates the filmic ravings of a madman with a Fred Wiseman. In order to do that one is forced to take the view that there’s no objective world at all beyond subjective experience. ie there’s no objective world to approximate, therefore all renditions are equally valid. But because the vast majority of us do agree that a cloudless daylit sky is more or less blue, among a multitude of other things, I think that position is rather untenable, if not impractical. I can’t but think you agree.

PS Having been in Florence two months ago I’d agree with your mother butt I’m not sure what it has to do with anything.

David
https://AllinOneFilms.com

[Tim Wilson]

[David Cherniack] “Hmmm. You seem to have missed my point, as well as my humour. “

Not the first time. LOL I’m also, to use another musical metaphor, tightly strung on this, and do indeed tend to over-respond.

And despite the lengthiness of this reply, I think you’re right that we agree on most of this.

[David Cherniack] “Nevertheless the point I was making is that some documentaries are more objective than others. By not including that caveat I thought your statement lax. However if you’re insisting that they’re all equally lacking in objectivity that’s a rather extreme position because it equates the filmic ravings of a madman with a Fred Wiseman. “

Hmmm, I’m still not sure about that. I think there are documentaries that are outside polemics (Jump! is a fantastic piece on competitive jump roping, highly recommended), but I think the best documentaries have an advocative intent. A nice contrast with Jump! is Hoop Dreams, which follows the diverging paths of two basketball phenoms. Dives deeply into their lives in a way that’s as perspective-laden as can be.

Not that I’m a huge fan of sports documentaries (these are the only two on my list), but they underscore that yes, there are degrees of heat, but that’s really it, imo.

[David Cherniack] “butt I’m not sure what it has to do with anything.”

I see what you did there!

Yet another way of saying that yes, every perspective is equally unique, equally subjective, and equally distant from objective.

A philosophical distinction as much as anything else, but philosophy is what we’re mostly talking about.

Ostensibly, though, we’re not talking about documentaries at all in this thread. At least at the outset. 🙂 We’re talking about NEWS. And news is even less objective than documentaries. There’s really REALLY no such thing as objective news.

There are however degrees of heat.

I’ll give you an example though. Good old Uncle Walter, the paragon of supposed objectivity. No yelling, but NO objectivity. His on-air objection to the Vietnam war turned the tide in anti-war sentiment.

My favorite example though is CBS news’ coverage of Woodstock. You can find it on YouTube. The correspondent is standing in front of a garbage pile far higher than his head, stretching out farther than the camera can see. Very calmly, very professional, in the manner of a seasoned veteran who has seen every kind of mayhem first hand and this ain’t nothin‘ compared to that, nevertheless for all practical purposes rants about the death toll, and the endless lawsuits, the strong objections from the (original) locals that forced the last-minute move to a farm that left people sleeping in sewage…on and on and on.

Every word objectively true. Not one single sentence constructed objectively.

(As a fun exercise, check the NBC and ABC coverage, too. Very different styles, virtually no agreement on facts, completely different conclusions.)

I disagree with most newscasters, heck, most people, about something. LOL Maybe even most things. LOL But I do tend to gravitate to the ones that yell less, and everyone tends to gravitate toward news that agrees with them. Because news is never objective.

To my ongoing point about THIS use of news, in the lawsuit that sparked the thread, I keep coming back to the point that the broadcast did not in any way distort what was being said.

The plaintiffs are very clear on this. There was no distortion of their position. Their actual opinions were precisely and fairly laid out in a reasonable manner.

The problem was the cut-in.

If you recall the movie Broadcast News, the entire thing hinged on a cut-in. A single tear rolling down William Hurt’s face. The fact is that the interviewer’s reverse has become so ingrained in our visual language that we forget what it means. The cut-in is ALWAYS a comment. Even if the comment is only, “I care about what you’re saying. Do go on.”

Because the news isn’t objective. It’s subjective. It’s the reporter’s eye view.

The cut-in that led to the collapse of everything was, unlike the example in the suit here, entirely sympathetic/empathetic. Reporter responds in a human way to a human tragedy. We can all think of a thousand deeply moving examples of this, when reporters choke up, or even break down.

This one was phony, though. The tear was manufactured: “Hold on, I’ve got an idea that will really sell this story — ima make a single tear roll down my face. I can do this. Watch.” The cut-in told a different story than the one that actually happened.

If it was true, there would have been no controversy.

And that’s what at issue here. NOT distortion of meaning. Keep coming back to that. The WORDS were accurate. The POSITION was clearly presented in a way that the plaintiffs recognize as valid.

It’s a distortion of CONTEXT. The producers added slack-jawed silence that didn’t happen there, and only happened at all when the subjects had been led to believe that picture wasn’t rolling.

And since context is the only truth I recognize, this becomes undeniably wrong, and ulimately unforgivable. Everyone involved should be fired — not for not being objective. No such thing. But for trying to tell a story that didn’t happen.

NEWS does that. NOT documentaries, not generally.

Madmen rave (although I adore Herzog’s non-raving documentaries, especially Encounters at the End of the World and Cave of Forgotten Dreams — noting his contextual, and I think proper, perspective is that the best science and the best art is created by people who are at best unhinged), but I can’t think of a single documentary where someone has successfully made the case that the filmmaker just made shit up in a way that completely reversed what someone SAID.

THAT I think is the straw man, and certainly not reflective of this news lawsuit.

Plaintiffs regularly claim lack of permission, they disagree with the outcome (he used my injury to argue against a war that I support), but neither Michael Moore nor Werner Herzog (assuming that those are among your betes noires, David) manufactured a reality as egregiously as what journalists do every day.

For the same reason my mother and you sought out David’s butt. Your perspective is your perspective for whatever reason you choose — curiosity, fondness of butts, whatever.

No more or less objective than any other position, but stated in a way mercifully free of madness.

[David Cherniack]

[Tim Wilson] “Yet another way of saying that yes, every perspective is equally unique, equally subjective, and equally distant from objective.”

Here’s where we part ways. It’s not my experience that every perspective is equally distant from objective. Some people, and that includes documentary filmmakers, are more delusional than others. Plain and simple.

[Tim Wilson] ”
It’s a distortion of CONTEXT. The producers added slack-jawed silence that didn’t happen there, and only happened at all when the subjects had been led to believe that picture wasn’t rolling.”

No disagreement there. If indeed the cut-in was taken from a different context it would be completely unethical. The people responsible should be publicly censored and fired. They do not deserve the privilege of working in the media.

As for Mr. Hertzog I’m afraid my opinion of his films is not as high as yours. I find him both pretentious and shallow which is as deadly a combination as there is. But I don’t consider Michael Moore a bête noire. He is a comedian and progressive propagandist and because what political views I have are progressive l generally agree with his propaganda. A filmmaker’s filmmaker he is not, however, but he does not pretend to be.

[Tim Wilson] “For the same reason my mother and you sought out David’s butt. Your perspective is your perspective for whatever reason you choose — curiosity, fondness of butts, whatever.

No more or less objective than any other position, but stated in a way mercifully free of madness”

I’m sorry to have to report that I didn’t seek out the butt of the David. I was just seeking out a different perspective on Michelangelo’s brilliance and wandered to the backside. As for the modest penis consider the artist’s dilemma: if he makes it too large it would distract from the whole. Small on the other hand makes the whole piece that much more impressive. Unfortunately the artist left no notes, that I’m aware of, on whether he had taken liberties with the size. But we can imagine the chagrin of the model if there was a sculptor’s diminuendo.

David
https://AllinOneFilms.com

[Martin Curtis]

It happened to Homer; it can happen to you.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qEGFaOeUm2A

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