The five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks has generated a wide range of coverage. We discuss some of it here and invite your examples here. Among the more controversial approaches is the docudrama produced by ABC that began last night and concludes this evening. Jill Geisler, Poynter's leadership & management faculty group leader, and Larry Larsen, Poynter's multimedia   editor, reacted quite differently to the show. Their discussion  is below. To add your own thoughts on the issue, click here.

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Jill Geisler wrote:
 

RELATED RESOURCES

Blogging the Show: Amy Gahran on some missed opportunities. Five Years On: Poynter faculty and staff reflect on recent coverage among all media of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Add your examples here. "Sept. 11, 2001: The Day the Web Grew Up," by Al Tompkins (Al's Morning Meeting) 9/11 Resources: Then and Now, a collection of Poynter Online's resources and coverage of Sept. 11, 2001 and its aftermath "Sept. 11 Anniversary: Story Ideas," by Al Tompkins (Al's Morning Meeting)

Sunday night, network TV watchers could choose from two versions of 9/11.  On CBS, an updated version of its award-winning documentary, "9/11." On ABC, viewers could opt for a docudrama, "The Path to 9/11."  

I watched CBS revisit the lives of the real firefighters whose lives were changed by 9/11. I learned of their emotional and physical hardships, their healing and their continued commitment to saving lives in the still-scarred city they love. I revisited the genuine, unforgettable images captured the day of America's great tragedy. The program's power came from its service as eyewitness to history.

At the same time, I wondered why the ABC network chose to spend this night immersed in docudrama -- a genre that commingles fiction with fact -- and, by the network's own admission, plays fast and loose with the truth. On the ABC News Web site, ABC Entertainment describes "The Path to 9-11" as "'a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources' that has 'for dramatic and narrative purposes ... fictionalized scenes.'" 

The ABC network could have commemorated the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, by turning prime time over to its news department. It could have invested in a well-researched examination of our country's status in the world, war and peace, safety and security -- as our nation debates the path ahead.

Instead of journalism, it chose to "entertain" -- with an admittedly doctored take on the past.

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Larry Larsen responded:

I'd have to challenge you on this one. I really didn't want to relive the footage. Seriously, I think most of the country is burned out on that.  And I think many others are more concerned about what the event portends for our future. It's not over yet -- by a long shot.

I watched the ABC show, The Path to 9/11. It was a story that had not yet been told and, I thought, the best movie yet (of any kind) about 9/11. It wove together events along the path of terrorism that people, until now, probably thought were separate events. It showed how the key people -- like Ramsey Yousef -- were involved in nearly all the events.

CBS photo

I watched it with Google on my laptop and I didn't find any glaring untruths, specifically as found in the 9/11 Commission's report. The movie depicted high-level federal officers who tripped over their own feet and a lowly border guard who saved countless lives by stopping a bomb from coming over the border. It showed how al Qaeda targeted women specifically (for instance, Benazir Bhutto) and, ironically, how it was women who have made great strides in defeating the group.

At the end of the program, ABC News followed with a brief on the origin of some of the sources for the show; an examination of the "truth" from a 50,000-foot view; and on-camera interviews with principles like Richard Clarke and intelligence agents who confirmed what really happened and gave specifics about the event.

Of course, the dialogue was developed, but it's a movie. The facts are the facts despite the exact words that were said. I think most of us were able to enjoy "Black Hawk Down" without a running tally of what was a direct quote or what had been developed.

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Jill Geisler replied:

Here's the problem, in my humble opinion: When "docu" dances with "drama," one can't always be certain -- from scene to scene -- who's leading.  

So I suggest, in the interest of transparency, that the producers of any such endeavor provide footnotes. These would be running footnotes, right on the screen, throughout the program so viewers could be truly informed. I envision them at the bottom of the screen -- like closed captioning, but open for all to see.

The footnotes for this docudrama might say:

• This is a direct quote from the 9/11 report.
• This quote is made up.
• This person is real.
• This is a composite character.
• This is an invented character.
• This is a real conversation.
• This is a conversation that might have taken place but there's no documentation.
• The person depicted here confirms this.
• The person depicted here disputes this.
• This is a real-time sequence of events.
• Time is compressed here.
• This action/event/conclusion isn't in the 9/11 report, but came from the following source: ___ .
  
• This action/event/conclusion isn't in the 9/11 report and we have no source.
• This action/event/conclusion is in the 9/11 report.
  

Imagine how helpful these footnotes could be –- for all those who don't watch with their laptops at the ready, or with a copy of the 9/11 report at hand. Imagine how helpful it would be for children, who are not yet media-literate and may conflate the "drama" with the "docu."  

Historians use footnotes. They even write books about footnotes and debate their use.

Here's a quote from a 1997 Stanford University magazine article about why footnotes are a pain but are, ultimately, so important:


And even journalists have taken to using them, when attempting to reconstruct complex or contentious stories. Poynter's Chip Scanlan writes about the practice -– and praises it.

And Roy Peter Clark has devoted much time and ink to the ethics of narrative nonfiction.

He is known to invoke John Hersey's essay "The Legend on the License" -- which argues that the writer should be able to say "None of this was made up."

In docudramas, stuff is made up.

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Larry and Jill have weighed in. They've raised important issues about looking at recent events through the lens of history. They've brought up questions about the value and values inherent in the tension between documentary and narrative non-fiction. But the conversation is not over. Now it's your turn. What do you think?

What's the role, if any, of narrative/drama in the telling of recent history? What's appropriate? What is not? What are we missing in this discussion? Join the conversation here.