Is the Topic Associated with Living People?

We said at the beginning of this book that the report shows in images the essence of a story lived by people and relates them to their context from a current perspective. The two following questions will explain why these points are in italics.

Without people it is very difficult to explain stories (we have seen this when we discussed abstract concepts). Even some animal documentaries humanize the beasts and ascribe them certain reasoning skills or cultural awareness that are more typical of humans. This has nothing to do with journalistic method.

A reporter is interested in the relation between people, their community and the environment, of which the flora and fauna also form a part. For this reason the protagonists have to be people or living beings with a relation to humans. In the programmes I have directed I have never considered the possibility of a project about reproduction of herbivores. On the other hand, the expedition of scientists who went to Vietnam to certify the discovery of a new species of ruminant mammal, similar to a goat, seemed an excellent topic. The focus of the report was the scientists and the peasants. Even if they didn’t find a single specimen, there would be a report, and if they did there would be news as well, especially if it was the first time we had seen it on TV. In contrast a documentary account would centre on the goat and the camera would definitely actively avoid the humans. A report would find out about the socio-environmental conditions that had allowed the species to survive, it would identify the risk if a black market started offering money for the horns or trophies of the animal. As it is almost impossible to fix clear boundaries to decide what fits and what does not in the space of a report, my criteria has always been to see if the topic provokes people to take sides, as we will see. The central idea here is that we are interested in the human landscape.