What Moore is responding to is a trend in documentary filmmaking - a certain strain that covers some, but not all, of the field - that turns documentaries into, essentially, visual works of journalism. Quite often, when watching a doc, one is struck with the sensation that some stock footage and a few talking heads are all that separate the experience from reading an article in the New Yorker - and if that's the case, why not simply make the docs as journalism, since it's so much easier to absorb written information you can take your time with? Well, I think documentary filmmakers are under the impression - entirely reasonable - that in order to create the greatest social impact with their work, they need to make films, not write non-fiction, since the readership in the United States is dramatically decreasing, whereas viewing content is dramatically increasing.

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The Huffington Post has entered a partnership with a former director general of al-Jazeera Network to launch an Arabic-language edition aimed at the growing number of young people in the Middle East with mobile devices.

The AOL-owned company will launch HuffPost Arabi after teaming up with Wadah Khanfar, who is currently chief executive of Integral Media Strategies.

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