We asked 66 professionals across the field of documentary-focused journalism:

As documentary becomes an ever-larger feature of the media landscape, is journalism addressing documentary’s role in the informational environment for public life? And where are there weaknesses? What would help?

They told us that the burgeoning field of documentary has developed without internal standards and practices for accuracy, avoiding conflict of interest, representational fairness, or other ethical standards. It also has historically had little critical or investigative scrutiny from journalism, either from critics or reporters. This means the field of documentary lacks both the benefits of increased awareness and the accountability measures that journalism can provide.

The ecology of information circulation about documentary is dysfunctional for many other reasons as well––the economic crisis of journalism more generally; arts journalism’s complicity with public relations; the common characterization of documentary film as entertainment; systemic lack of opportunity for rising and BIPOC critical voices; and absence of publicly available data about the field.

Interviewees recommended a variety of ways to address the problem:

• Documentarians need to articulate and publicize the standards of their field;
• Journalistic editors need to know more about the growing importance of the documentary business;
• Critics need to know about the history and aesthetics of documentary;
• There should be more public discussion of documentary standards.

Interviewees also described a variety of programs, venues and models to accomplish these goals.