The ethical views of staging video

Staging anything, including video, photos and quotes is ethically wrong in journalism. As journalists, it is our duty to fully represent situations as truthfully and accurately as possible. Staging video is just lying visually, instead of with words. It's misrepresenting a situation and skewing the presentation so that it looks good for whatever we're trying to report on, instead of showing the situation how it is.

There's a line between journalism and art that is sometimes vague, but that the journalist needs to be aware of. It's possible to be fair and accurate and still visually appealing, even though this may be more of a challenge than staging the scene.