Documentaries > Cable News

Sitting in a Landmark theater the other day (my version of holy ground), I noticed that, thanks to it being just a few months before Oscar season, we were seeing the last remnants of the late August/September films hitting theaters in the pre-movie trailers.  For those who live their lives around art house film calendars (this can’t possibly be just me), I saw a combination of crowd-pleaser films from Western Europe, future Indy Spirit nominees, and documentary after documentary.  As has been noted by myriad critics this film season, documentaries have had an incredible year.  Every time I look at the upcoming movies list on Landmark’s website, I find myself trying to budget another documentary into my movie allowance.

In addition to this slew of documentaries, I’ve also been tuning in more frequently to the news, both online and in particular, on television.  CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and others have had a slew of different topics to cover over the past three weeks coming out of Washington; in particular, the debt ceiling and government shutdown debate.  This news, though, is so frequently repetitive and speculative, I had to wonder to myself, “why can’t the news be as relevant as a documentary?”

I’m aware that this is a liberal hipster style of argument (I have recently been shopping for Warby Parker glasses, so this might be a guilty-as-charged situation), but it has quite a bit of credence.  Documentaries are able to cover a wide variety of topics in an in-depth, informative manner that the news cannot.  I remember watching Chasing Ice last year and thinking that if every global warming doubter in the country could watch this film, we’d have politicians clamoring for climate change legislation.  Documentaries this year covered everything from income imbalance (Inequality for All) to animal cruelty (Blackfish) to the concept of violence (The Act of Killing) to abortion rights (After Tiller).  These are all wildly topical issues in modern society, and yet you would never see such an in-depth, thoughtful discussion of them in a two-hour format on cable television.

Part of this is because cable television does, in fact, need to have commercials and breaking news in order to function.  No one wants to devote 6-12 months researching a topic and then discover that during the scheduled airing of the documentary Ted Cruz announces he’s running for president.  But cable news never has the sort of topical conversations that a documentary has.  It’s not like someone couldn’t have some of the in-depth reporting that a documentary has and put that into a thirty-minute segment.  And it’s also not like cable news cannot spur a conversation and promote the hell out of a documentary if they wanted to do so.

Perhaps cable news, which continues to be a dying organism (particularly CNN) when it comes to actual meaningful discussions of the topics of the day, could at least borrow some advice from documentaries.  For starters, a proper discussion doesn’t happen with four different people in boxes talking to a moderator.  If you give each person only 120 seconds to speak throughout the segment, all you’re getting is ten minutes of talking points.  You’ll still, of course, get news, but if all we wanted was news we’d just subscribe to the AP wire.  Cable news has so much potential as a device to truly connect with audiences and get them immersed in all aspects of reporting, yet today it’s a series of talk shows and “we’re waiting on information.”

Look at it from a different aspect.  I’ve recently been trying to maximize my outside of work life.  If I have a spare fifteen minutes, I have a list on my cell phone of things that I need to get done, and I start in on them.  I don’t just watch television or bum around on the internet for fifteen minutes.  I get something concrete and tangible done, like a mini-workout or cleaning the apartment.  As a result, I’ve been wildly more productive in almost every aspect of my life, and I see that every day-my to do lists rarely have repeat items, I am making progress on projects that I have been talking about for years and getting nothing done on, and I am able to feel more fulfilled and proud of my day’s work when I go to bed.

Cable news is brimming with ten minute opportunities to be more productive.  While the documentary has the considerable advantage of editing, they would never waste ten minutes speculating on what is about to be included in a speech we're going to hear anyway.  The twenty minutes before the president is going to be speaking about the debt crisis could be spent discussing Syria, the failed rollout of Obamacare, or the recent batch of Nobel laureates.  Hell, it could even be spent discussing the debt crisis, just not postulating what the president is about to say.  Instead of bringing back Crossfire, CNN could have more in-depth reporting from someone like Christiane Amanpour.  The world is brimming with new stories and information, and in a globalized media age, there should be no such thing as a “slow news day.”

I’m aware that this isn’t entirely on cable news-more people watch FOX News than will ever watch one of these meaningful documentaries, so I’m going to issue a challenge to us all.  Look over at your local Landmark theater (or HBO cinema, or Netflix queue, or whatever market you have) and pick three documentaries for the fall to watch from the past year.  And then tell your friends about them.  Challenge them to see them.  Word-of-mouth is the holy grail of independent cinema, and it’s about time we put it to good use instead of discussing Miley’s twerking.  I have already picked out three of mine (Stories We Tell, Blackfish, and Inequality for All will all be discussed on this blog in the next month).  What will yours be?  And do you feel that cable news could learn a thing or two from documentaries?  Share in the comments!