Berzin, if there's not some balance it's just propaganda. The masses are too easily swayed and either incapable or too lazy to do further research. Hell, too many just absorb as fact whatever they see in print or on film, or in chain emails for that matter.
If you want an example, look at the damage done by Breitbart's recent use of part of a video clip (Sherrod) and all the damage done by supposedly educated people who didn't even go so far as to view the whole video. Just one example of mass histeria created by slanted 'journalism' presenting just one side of the issue as fact without context.
The whole thing has the feel of a Michael Moore production - while entertaining, it's just propaganda unless there's some balance.
You missed the point of what I said. Documentaries are, to me, vehicles in which to ask questions and further research a particular subject.
The mass hysteria brought on by whatever people see in the news is not so much the fault of the propagator of a media presentation, but of what the population watching deems to be an outrage once filtered through their collective personal bias. Whatever cements a persons' personal/political agenda, that is pretty much how information gets filtered in each individual brain.
People who respond viscerally to media-as-information are knee-jerk reactionary by nature. The type of information they are fed is either internalized or marginalized depending on their pre-determined bias.
That is life. For those who care to put more thought into what they see and read, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
If the corporation in question acquired the beachfront property in the DR they way it was portrayed, then it is not propaganda. It is truth and must be spoken. Juxtapose that with the very real portrayal (however fleeting) of surly Dominicans overcharging gringos and then calling them cheap because they refuse to spend money in places where the will be ripped off. That is also a reality.
Or how the two Dominican Judges, refused entry onto a private beach owned by an AI, were easily placated with a free weekend stay. Where does this leave the common man if the Dominican judiciary are bought off so easily? Is this not too part of the problem, moreso than the big, bad capitalists who own the AIs?
There are many issues on both sides that need addressing. The documentary, though a bit slanted to the left, left me asking questions of all three sides-the AIs, the indigenous population who live within reach of these resorts, and the Dominican political/judiciary system.
I nor you can help the knee-jerk reactions folks have, nor can we control how people internalize information and filter it.
All I know is, for me, this documentary did it's job. We need to see more efforts of this type.
I agree with you that the masses are too easily swayed. My argument is, an attempt at presenting unbiased media coverage isn't going to change this for the reasons I previously mentioned. For the most part people will be biased regardless of how their media is fed to them. That's just how it is.
