Creating Reality in Factual Television

Creating Reality in Factual TelevisionThe Frankenbite and Other FakesBy Manfred W. Becker ISBN 9780367481100, HardbackPublished October 7, 2020184 Pages 13 B/W Illustrations Creating Reality in Factual Television analyzes the uneasy interaction between economics, culture, and professional ethics in reality and documentary television storytelling. Through the "frankenbite," an editorial tool that extracts and re-orders the salient elements or single words of a statement, interview, or exchange into a revealing confession or argument, the book explores how and why editors manipulate truth in factual television.The author considers how the editing of documentary television is increasingly following reality television’s dictate to entertain instead of inform, how the "real" and the "truth" fall victim to the demand to "tell entertaining stories," and how editors must compromise their professional ethics as a result. Drawing on interviews with 75 North American and European editors that exp