On Monday in class, we screened a documentary titled Frontline/World "News War: War of Ideas" It was a piece from PBS about news in the Middle East. It was considered an expository documentary where the filmmaker and main protagonist went around to different news agencies throughout the world showing how different agencies treated news and events in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.
I did not feel like the documentary took a hard slant favoring one outlet over the other, but more or less said that they were all biased and they all knew it. Due to who was making the documentary, there was a pro-America slant, but I don't think it really painted anybody as the bad guy.
The style of "Expository" mode worked well in this aspect. It was very journalistic and almost like a diary of events. In something like this, expository is useful for uncovering facts and discussing ideas. This piece did not lend itself to an artistic style based on the subject matter, so Expository was fine.
The part that surprised me the most is that the US Government has their own Arabic language TV channel. That alone was a little surprising, just because it was new information, but the shock is it is based in Virginia. I wonder the value in having the central headquarters in the United States while the target audience is in the Middle East. I can understand a branch near Washington DC, but the headquarters is a bit odd. I also wonder why this channel isn't available in America, as it is funded by tax payer's money.
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