A story on Bill Maher's documentary "Religulous" caught my eye since it has a chance of being nominated for an Academy Award. The story reports on subjects of the film who are now complaining about being tricked by Maher into doing interviews that they did not know were connected to his comedic documentary about religion. The man who directed "Borat" also directed "Religulous" which adds credence to the claim that the subjects were tricked. The video's b-roll consists of clips from the movie, which gives viewers an idea of what Maher's documentary is about so that they can follow along with the news report.
The video quotes one subject, Rev. Jeremiah Cummings, but never shows an actual interview with him. I realize that he may not have wanted to be shown on camera, but since he is such a big source in this story, that interview would have been a good addition. I was also disappointed that the report used what looked like an old interview with Maher and the director where they admit to lying to people to get interviews. However, the report pulls only a soundbite from the pair and I think the piece should have at least included an explanation from them on why they lied to subjects. The piece is very one-sided since we don't directly hear from Maher.
I don't think this story would be that hampered by being "text only." The only benefit of video in this case is that the report can show clips from Maher's documentary. Those clips do give us a better idea about the content of the film, but a few sentences in a print story could also clear that up for us.
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