ironeaters

We should all be watching more documentaries... I finally managed to see one I've been wanting to see all the time - "Ironeaters" by the Bangladeshi filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz. It was selected "best film" at Film Southasia '07 in Kathmandu and received several other prizes... and rightly so, for his portrait of the shipbreaking industry near Chittagong doesn't only have stunning images, and you learn so much about God knows what (society, life, ships...) - what I find most striking about Shaheen (there's one other documentary I've seen, "Sand and Water") is how he depicts people's lives with hardly any author's commentary. The poorest of the poor are not only given a voice here, they come across with dignity: Not just as "victims", but always as full human beings. I haven't quite seen that elsewhere.
Why can't we simply give voices to the ordinary people more often as journalists? Because we don't have the formats? Don't always have 90 minutes? Are too fond of telling our own stories? Or simply too lazy, or not modest enough to just listen?