Staging!

I have heard about the situation of a cameraman asking an NFL draft player to re-create his first reaction of discovering that he was picked, and definitely, without a doubt, believe this is completely unethical. I agree with Dave Wertheimer that as journalists, our job is to discover the truth, watch it unfold and to share truths of stories to people. Our job is NOT to manipulate scenarios, specifically by asking someone to do something that would not be in their normal routine. There are some grey areas within the context of staging though. For example, in Chapter two about videophotography, the author maintains that it is completely ethical if a journalist is video-recording a fly fisherman casting a fly onto the water, and then to ask the fisherman to repeat this action so that he can get another, potentially different shot of the scenario. The author justifies this because this action of re-casting a fly is something the man would have done despite the presence of the journailst, and therefore it is ethical. On the other hand though, if a videographer did not get the shot he/she wanted of a man walking down a street, and asked the man to turn around and walk down that street again, that would be considered unethical. Wertheimer's reason for this being unethical is because this is essentially asking the subject to act, it makes that subject uncomfortable, and finally and most importantly in my opinion, is because had the videographer not been there, the subject most-likely would not have turned around and walked back down that same street, just for its own sake.

Also, although some may consider it "staging" by setting up lights in someone's home or office for an interview, and therefore changing the natural environment, I find it difficult to fit into the negative connotation of "staging". It is generally understood by the public, as well as the subject that a typically more formal interview is conducted in this way, and therefore, is not giving any false information to anyone. Despite the fact that cameras and video equipment tend to influence the way a subject may act, a good journalist can establish a strong rapport with the source by first gaining their trust and making them comfortable, and then by asking them to do whatever it is they would be doing if the journalist was not present. Overall, this contributes to the outcome of the story as a whole and allows it to unfold as it naturally would.

If the story can only be told through the means of staging, we should make the ethical decision to refrain from collecting that story at all. We need not create the news, because usually a story is always there, whether we can easily see it or not and it is up to us, as truth-tellers, to find it, even if it is not exactly what we think we are looking for.