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Agnes Varnum is a freelance writer, film programmer and communications manager for the Austin Film Society. She is the primary contributor to doc it out and Tribeca Film Institute's Resources.

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Is it fair use if Michael Moore uses it?

June 2nd, 2006 • Related Posts • Tags

AJ Schnack and I seem to have a lot to talk about these days - it’s too bad he’s in LA and I’m in NYC because we’d have great discussions over coffee, but our loss is your gain cuz we have the discussion over blog. He posted on fair use today, I responded, he posted again and again I responded. The title of this post relates back to his>>

As AJ’s journalistic background winds up showing through in his blog work, I got to thinking about my own relationship to the issues I’m writing about. I should point out, in case anyone hasn’t read my bio, that I have been earning a living doing outreach and organzing around “fair use for documentary filmmakers.” The work of the Center for Social Media, and thus me, has been supported mainly by the Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations (all of this information is available on the materials). It wouldn’t be hard for someone to assume that I’m motivated to talk about fair use because I’m being paid to do so. But the wierd part is that all of the work I am doing now is work that I’ve agreed to take on because I believe it is important and that I have something to offer - knowledge, enthusiasm - and I feel invested in the outcome. When I say I want to see AJ’s Nirvana work unfettered, I mean that. I think documentary filmmaking is extremely important work.

I don’t think I’ll ever claim to be a journalist. I am too passionate and too opinionated to be (or pretend to be) objective and I’ve had very little training in how to put those traits aside (I did take one reporting class in undergrad, but I’m sure I didn’t do well - inverted pyriamid be damned!). I’ve tried to make my biases apparent through my blog work but I’m putting it down again here to be clear.

There Are 2 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by AJ Schnack on 2 June 2006:

    I responded over at my place, but let me just say that I’ve always found the idea that journalism should be “objective” to be a farce. Mostly because the idea is that you should report “both sides” as if you are working for Crossfire - the assumption is that are 2 sides, that there are only 2 sides and that both sides have equal weight in terms of logic, facts, etc. I’m much more interested in journalists who reveal their point of view - I’d rather know where you are coming from - when they have a strong one, rather than pretend that an equanimity exists where one does not. I don’t have a problem with the fact that Fox is biased to the right, I have a problem with the fact that they pretend otherwise.

    But now we’re fully off-topic.

    The next cup of virtual coffee is on me.

    AJ

  2. Comment by agnes on 3 June 2006:

    No, you hit the heart of my post. I guess the moral of the story is critical thinking whether it’s a blog, a telecast or a documentary. It’s just unfortunate that our collective critical thinking ability is reduced every time George Bush opens his mouth! So, I feel like I have to be very clear about my motivations.