The UPS guy showed up with such urgency at 9:00 pm last night, the truck’s stereo blaring at top volume as he pulled up. I wasn't expecting anything and I couldn't figure out what could possibly be so important. Turns out he had reason to be excited. He had my brand-new, hot-off-the-presses copy of Reclaiming Popular Documentary (Indiana University Press), edited by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson. Lots of great material in here : public television and its relationship to the doc ecology; aerial cinematography and the fly-over documentary genre; food docs; popular music docs; eco-docs; melodrama in popular documentary; true crime docs; viral media; etc. The collection also happens to include my essay "Errol Morris, the New York Times, Docmedia, and Op-Docs as Pop Docs” (not sure if the UPS guy realized that, but...)..
What’s the gist of it? Well, you’ll have to read it, but it’s got some scope to it (MK-Ultra, Seymour Hersh, journalism, photography, Abu Ghraib, “docmedia,” online newspapers, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, smallpox, biological warfare, Steve Bannon, etc.), largely because the work of Errol Morris—in motion picture and print form—has so much scope to it, even if one focuses almost entirely on Morris’s involvement with the New York Times alone. Which of Morris’s films are discussed? Well, primarily a trio of his contributions to the New York Times’ Op-Docs series—The Umbrella Man (2011), November 22, 1963 (2013), and Demon in the Freezer (2016)—as well as The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Wormwood. (2017).
Once again, I find myself in excellent company--contributors include Zoé Druick, Mike Baker, Patricia Aufderheide, S. Topiary Landberg, Rick Prelinger,, Ezra Winton, the late Jonathan Kahana, and many others.
If you’re interested in learning more about the book, its contents, and its authors, you can find that information here.
It's been a long, strange, but fruitful trip, Christie and Steve--congratulations, and thank you for all the hard work!
aj