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http://www.slideshare.net/mattwako/factual-programming-10324123

http://liamhaydn.blogspot.co.uk

What is Factual Programming

Examples of issues with factual programming

Factual Programming

By Caroline Stark

Factual television is a genre of non-fiction television programming that documents actual events and people. These types of programs are also described as documentary, observational documentary, fly on the wall, docudrama, and reality television.

Factual Television is something that everyone watches and the most common forms of it are the news and documentaries.

An example of a factual programming would be "Peru Cocaine Capital of the World Stacey Dooley Investigates BBC full documentary 2013"

Another example would be "BBC match of the day"

Objectivity: . A good example of this issue being addressed properly is from a documentary called ‘Cannabis; Whats the harm?’ the presenter admits to smoking when he was younger instantly letting the viewers know he won’t be as biased as they make think. He then proceeds to talk directly about the positive effects of marijuana and just how common it is to be grown and smoked illegally. He shows impressive facts, statistics, interviews with daily smokers who have successful lives, basically suggesting there’s nothing wrong with marijuana. However, he then goes onto to talk about the darker side of smoking marijuana, he looks into the negative effects, the negative facts and the lives ruined by marijuana. Towards the end of the show, after stalling his judgement he speaks about how he thinks that, if enjoyed responsibly there’s nothing wrong with smoking marijuana and believes the laws should be revised, so telling all the negative effects and stories of turmoil may have seemed a bit unfair to him and his opinion, but he was persistent and fair which made him a good presenter.

Privacy: An example of this is the News Of The World were part of a phone hacking scandal where they gained illegal access into a missing girl’s voice mail, listening to her messages and collecting information they would later turn into a report. They continuously came up with new stories for their newspapers and reporters and no one knew or could understand where they were getting such precise information from. Family members were suggesting someone was corrupt and were selling the press information. The News Of The World then went as far as deleting messages from her voicemail that were blocking new messages from coming through, leading the police to believe she was still alive and putting a false sense of hope in the family. Eventually, after intense investigations the employees at the News of The World was caught out and the suspects were eventually arrested.

Stacey Dooley is a good example due to the fact that she makes a range of different documentaries. She make documentaries about drugs, crime, religions and how certain life styles can effect people. Here is a link to one of her documentaries on drugs.

Match of the day is another example of factual programming. This programme if all related to sport and it has been made to inform people about whats happening with football. This is a programme that is mostly popular with men and is on every week on BBC

Accuracy: An example of this is if you’re reporting live on a breaking news story and you are interviewing eye witnesses you have to remember that some people may not remember all the events as they took place and will often exaggerate or even make things up to provide an interesting story.

Balance: An example of this is if you were to do a show on drugs amongst teenagers and throughout the show you used accurate information, statistics and facts that shown the good and bad effects of drugs then went on to the conclusion where you became biased towards drugs being negative and effecting teenagers badly it would be acceptable providing you had the knowledge and information to back up the points you make.

Impartiality: An example of a factual TV programme that views both sides of an argument equally is ‘Supersize vs Super skinny’ during that show the presenter discusses how bad both guests diet’s are, one who overeats massively and one who under eats massively. The show then progresses to switch the diets of the guests for a week in order to show that they don’t need to live on their current diet and that it can be changed for their benefit. Even though the show does mention how bad takeaways and fatty foods are it also shows how bad under eating or just eating a certain food group can be.

In this programme there is facts and statistics used to talk about what has happened in the last week around football and sport. There is a set presenter and it is set in a studio, then thoughout the programme it shows clips of the weekly football matches.

In this documentary she looks into the worlds biggest cocain provider. She shows and talks about how it is made, the effects it has on the families and people around it and also people in other countries. Thought the whole documentary she asked questions and everything she talks about is fact. She uses a few opinions but that allows you to have your own opinion while you are watching it.

Issues Within Factual Programming

Opinion: When the producer wants to use opinions to help show the viewers what members of the public think it is important they choose a wide variety of people from different walks of life to ensure that the answers and opinions they get will be as widespread and as different as possible. It is important to keep a balance whilst showing opinions. This is vital when it comes to keeping an argument fair because if you show too many opinions stating they agree with an argument it will make the show seem biased towards that, which is something you try to prevent if you wish to keep a discussion fair. Presenters shouldn’t mention their opinion as it can make viewers believe they’re being biased.

Bias: During a factual TV programme it is important that the producer looks at different opinions, views and facts and focuses equally on both concepts. It’s often easy for someone to become biased especially if they feel there is no room for another argument to pose, however presenters have to be careful not to make biased statements or judgements as it can offend some viewers.

Representation: Representation means how something is constantly portrayed or the stereotype of a certain thing. You have to be careful not to stereotype anything during a factual programme as this can lead to some information being wrong.

Privacy: Privacy is an issue in factual TV programming because everyone has a right to be in a state of being free from the public attention, however the media have a right to a freedom of expression and often argue that they should be able to produce anything they believe is in the public’s best interest. Sometimes journalists will be asked not to approach or ask questions on suspects if they feel that any answers they may give could potentially aggravate an investigation.

Contract with viewer: The contract with the viewer is an unwritten rule that means if you state your show is factual and interesting and then describe what your show is about you have made a pact with your viewers to supply them with the information you said you would as well as it being precise, accurate and interesting.

Accuracy: Accuracy is vital for any reputation as a news provider. You have to ensure the audience has trust in your stories, if you consistently make mistakes and provide wrong information your audience’s patience will eventually wear thin and their interest and trust will be abolished.

Balance: Balance means to keep a factual TV programme fair to both sides of the topic it’s discussing, there are always two sides to a story and the information told to the viewers should be correct, fair and equal. It is important to keep a balance on views and investigate to find information for both sides of the story. Ensuring that both sides of an argument are shown in a factual TV programme is vital as it prevents a certain opinion being glorified to a viewer, making them believe what they’re told without knowing all the facts from both sides.

Impartiality: Impartiality means to view both sides and opinions equally, to not take sides or make your own personal judgement. It doesn’t mean that things will always be fair and it doesn’t prevent reporting fair judgements that have a lot of evidence backing them up.

Objectivity: Objectivity is to see the whole truth, using evidence and facts and to be fair about it. This means that the reporter or presenter has to show fair views from both sides of an argument so they don’t appear to be biased; this also allows them to have different ideas and explore different opinions. To achieve objectivity firstly you have to be able to stall your judgement whilst looking at all of the facts.

Subjectivity: Subjectivity is the term given to your opinion or judgement you make whilst discussing a certain topic and is basically the opposite of objectively.

Access: To begin making your documentary and filming where necessary you need to firstly obtain permission. If permission is not obtained lawsuits can be filed and your programme won’t be complete. Yu also need to make sure you have access to the correct resources that will supply you with vital information.

Codes and Conventions

Codes and conventions of factual TV

News

Mode of address to viewer

Field Reporters

Link to Studio

Field reporters are there to do they same job as studio reporters they both have to job to make sure that they are letting the viewers Know what is going on and all the facts and figures. The only difference in the two of that a field reporter does it outside the studio and usually in the place where they issue or news is coming from. The Field reporters is usually linked in with the studio reporter and they are talking to each other and both having some input.

A good example of this would BBC news, every night at 10pm when the show starts they always have at least one news reporter reporting live from a scene somewhere in the world. It is important when presenting the news to make sure that your surroundings are not too loud otherwise if the audience cant here you they will most likely switch channel. The best way to overcome this would be to do a sound check before going live. It is also important to look formal just like the news readers from the studio because you would give out the wrong impression to the audience if you were dressed like a tramp, however if you dressed more formally (suit/ dress) then you would be much more appealing for the public viewers to listen too and watch. Field reporters doing live reports on certain parts of the news makes the audience feel much more involved and informed where they can actually see in video what is causing all the fuss.

Links to studio is where news teams on a certain studio may want to discuss a news story with a different news studio who may have more information to share or a guest on the show is an expert on the certain news being discussed. Web definition is that they send a television studios audio and video feed from the broadcast studio to a transmitter in another studio. A good example of this BBC news because they use this allot when they want to a discuss a certain news story with another studio which may have an expert on the news story there. It is important to have links to the studio because it positively impacts the audience because they feel more involved and like their being told to the best standards possible because the news team are going out of their way to get more information on certain news stories by having video chats with other news studios. It is also important to dress formally if involved with these links to studio for the same reasons as the last few slides. Eye contact, straight face, no movement must also happen to make it perfect.

The mode of address to viewer is how does the media present and address itself to the audience to make the audience feel a connection. A good example of this would be “Aileen life and death of a serial killer” because the producer/ presenter filmed the documentary in such a way that it made us feel like everything Aileen was saying was being directed at us (audience). When she opened up about her life to the producer we were feeling the same connection with Aileen as the producer was.

BBC news is also a great example because of the way that they have a routine which usually is exactly the same every day which is:

1: A brief glimpse of what is coming up in the news.

2: Newsreaders greet viewers at home and then present the news.

3: After the main headlines have been covered the Local news readers then read their news.

4: And then finally the weather man/woman

This is because of the above routine the audience feels a connection and also feels more comfortable because they know the layout of the how the news show will work. And if the audience gets the routine stuck in their head from the connection then they will be able to remember every day what time the news is on and just switch straight on. Also when news readers are reading the news or presenters are presenting their documentary another key mode of address to the viewers would be to dress formally keep eye contacts and take their role seriously. By doing this the audience will feel comforted and that there is a connection.

Here is an example of a BBC field news report

Codes and conventions. Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided into two categories – technical and symbolic. Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the story in a media text, for example the camera work in a film.

Interviewing experts and witnesses

Report Structure

Actually Footage

You see “actuality footage” on every news channel on T.V. It is the footage that relates to whatever the news readers are talking about at the time. They usually do this by having the footage showing on T.V while the news readers do commentaries over the top of it. It is basically a visual aid to news that the news readers are discussing. A great example is BBC news because they are constantly doing news stories on Iraq and they use actuality footage to back up what they are saying. The reason “actuality footage” is important to the viewers at home is because it gives them a vision of what the news readers are talking about giving them a better idea of the story. If there was no “actuality footage” then it would be a lot harder and confusing possibly for some viewers to understand what the news story was about.

The inverted pyramid is the model for news writing. It simply means that the heaviest or most important information should be at the top of your story, and the least important information should go at the bottom. And as you move from top to bottom, the information presented should gradually become less important. This technique is used by BBC news. The same applies for the news show structure itself going from most important or dramatic stories first until it reaches the last news story which would be the least interesting or important. I think this is a really good structure to use because that way as soon as the viewers switch on to the news they see the main dramatic news at the beginning of the show which would captivate them and keep them watching through out the news show. However starting with least important news first and ending with most important news would have a bad impact on the audience because they would become quickly bored if they switch on to the news on to hear about someone talking about a cat being stuck up a tree.

Interviews are an important role in media industry. They are mainly used to obtain information on certain subjects from people who are experts on the subjects or they can be used for finding out peoples opinions on topics. Interviews give most T.V viewers the opportunity to find out information they would never have known until they saw this interview. A good example is “BBC Match of the day” On this T.V programme they interview a lot of football players, managers, coaches, etc to get information out of them such as “who played best in the match”, “was this the score you were expecting?” or “where do you think you could have improved on?”. Those are just a few examples. It is important getting feedback from these people because football fans would want to know why a player maybe played badly or why they weren't playing in defense (out of thousands of questions that could be asked). These interviews are important for people because its usually the only way they can find out whats going on with their favourite football club or players.

Another great example was BBC news a few months ago when they were interviewing all kinds of people about the student riots. The viewers not only got entertained and interested in what the people said during the interviews but it also gave them an opportunity to debate with what the people were saying. On a lot of news channels you also get experts who sometimes come on the show or do interviews with the news channels to give their expertise on certain topics such as Global warming, Politics, natural disasters and many more. This is important to the viewers because it fills them with knowledge they may not have known before which could turn out to be useful for them in the future. A brilliant example of “Witnesses” would be BBC news. News reporters usually do interviews with witnesses on topics like murders, assaults or disasters. The most recent example I have seen is off a witness describing to the reporter what they saw happening when a 15 year old boy was stabbed across the street from them. These kind of interviews usually have more detail in them because the witness saw everything first hand which was makes the viewers so interested because it feels like they are being told the story as exactly as it happened.

Studio News reporter, this is a person that TV companies hired to sit behind the desk in the studio and are paid to read out factual news reports. The studio is a place that is owned by a news company and it is only used for news. When presenting most news reporters keep and straight face and have to wear smart clothing.

Expository

Interactive

Observational

Interactive documentarys is where the film maker/ crew interact with the subject they are doing their documentary on. There is usually a lot of use of achieves materials such as news articles, footage and web information. There is sometimes use of voice over, usually be the documentary maker. And most importantly the documentary maker is visible in the footage and participates and intervenes with the documentary. A great example of a interactive documentary would be “supersize me” because the documentary maker is in nearly all the shots of the documentary and he is the biggest participant in it when he eats only fast food for 30 days while the camera films him! These kind of documentarys to me and the audience are probably the most enjoyable to watch because of the amount of action usually going on in them (like supersize me for example). These kind of documentary are very fun and captivating for the audiences to watch even though they are usually quite biased sometimes.

Expository documentaries are documentaries that expose a person or topic, it is one of the four classic main types of documentary. Expository documentaries are well known for having a commentator talking over the pictures or videos and explaining the story. A good example of this type of documentary would be “Inside Job” By Charles H Ferguson and Audrey Marrs. The subject of the documentary is about the 2008 financial breakdown, which also revealed a lot of government officials using spending money unnecessarily which also enraged the world.• This kind of documentary has a large impact with the audience that watch it because the whole idea of an “expository” documentary is to expose something that most people don’t know about which is why most viewers would find it interesting and factual to watch.

An observational documentary is usually where the cameraman/ producer follows a person/ people or items around to observe what happens to them. There are hardly ever voice overs or interviews in this type of documentary and the equipment is usually informal like hand held cameras for example. Long takes are used quite often as well so that the producer can capture as much of the subjects life as possible.• A great example of this type of documentary would be “16 and pregnant” because the camera follows them around while they get on with every day life and deal with it.• Viewers react positively with these type of documentaries because it is interesting just to watch what other people are doing in their lives.•

Reflective

This is an example of a BBC studio news report, it shows what the presenters are made to wear and also how they have to act and read throughout the program.

Reflexive documentary's use techniques from fiction film for a more emotional, subjective response. Usually use re enactments in part of the documentary if not in all of it, dramatic music may be included to keep the documentary alive. These kind of documentary’s rely more on suggestion than fact. A great example of a reflexive documentary would be “Kidulthood” which is based on a bunch of youths in London who get the day off school, so they steal alcohol, beat up the school bully and then at the end one of the main characters die” This is meant to be based on youth life in London but I feel this film/documentary was very over exaggerated. The audience love these kind of documentarys because they are less fictional than other types of documentarys so usually result in being more entertaining. Kidulthood certainly proved to be a entertaining documentary, if you could call it that.

The purpose of this assignment is to provide learners with the opportunity to develop skills for and knowledge of factual TV production.

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