The programme offered no answers, but told the story of the underdogs, those killed, not taking the side of the Government, the dominant group. Eye witness accounts were used to base a reconstruction upon, but then in the inquiry that followed, one of the eyewitnesses, withdrew their statement, which brings the validity of the whole piece in to question, but this is the style of a traditional documentary. It is hard to know the best way of how to carry out a documentary, as they happen after the event has occured, it has to be staged to a certain extent, thus losing authenticity. It can also be difficult to get people around you, who are uninvolved in the documentary, to act naturally with camaras, television crews and actors in their community. Texts such as this are seen as excercises in journalism as opposed to a piece of dramatic television.
Documentaries can look very different though.
Death of a Princess , for example looks more like a drama than documentary. The reporter is shown at a dinner party to begin with, and it is as much a story about how he gathers the evidence as it is an investigation of the death of a Saudi Arabian Princess. This is achieved through the use of actors, fictional names and places to protect identities. At this point there is a flashback sequence, mixing realism with surrealism, which is very different to the formal style of the IRA piece, with head and shoulder shots, and on-screen titles for experts. Death of a Princess uses factual anchors along the bottom of the screen which, in addition to some voice over narration, is the only clue to the its documentary genre.