Initially, one is led to believe that to critique something accurately, whether it is political or not, one must be presented with the facts. Something reportage, non-fiction and documentary provide for the reader and audience. However, poetry and the novel too contain facts about living conditions, people's emotions and the climate in which the author is living. These facts are equally important as dates and names as they too provide an insight, something essential to critique. This is even more so when one looks at the civil rights movement in America. The poetry and prose that was produced at this time is equal to any reportage and non-fiction in providing one with the ability to offer a political critique of the circumstances. The poetry of Langston Hughes is just one example of someone who portrays the segregation of America as clearly as any non-fiction possibly could. Whilst it is argued that poetry aestheticises reality as opposed to recording it, it is clear from examining non-fiction from this era, such as transcripts of speeches made by Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X that they too contain many similarities to the poetry of Hughes, and thus demonstrate that both forms of writing provide the audience with equal opportunities for political critique.
Documentary and poetry both have many common features, and whilst one may expect that poetry is the more emotional or aestheticising of the two forms of writing, documentary too can evoke the audience's reaction in as strong a way too:.
"There is a large subspecies of documentary, the expose, which uses emotional reportage to persuade the audience to take action against men and evils that cause unnecessary suffering in the world." .
By looking at documentary through the perspective of the expose, one is able to see how the transcripts of speeches made by Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X provide us with examples of "emotional reportage", enabling us to make a political critique of 1960s America.
