Writing Documentaries

Is it just me that thinks it's weird when a documentary has writing credits? They're stories built on interviews and facts. What is a screenwriter going to be doing here? Flesh the story out? If that was the case then the documentary at its core would be diluted and lose credibility (considering people were to find out. Here's looking to you James Frey!).

Now, at this point I have to look at nonfiction as a literary category. Look at journalism, for example. The majority of articles written for a paper are built in the same way that a filmmaker would make a documentary. They conduct interviews to get closer to the truth through different perspectives. They take the time to think about how all the pieces fit together and at the end the reader is given a fully formed story. And under the title we'll see "written by." Somebody took the time to compile of the documentation and molded into a ingestable story. They deserve the credit for sifting and writing the story.

If a journalist deserves the credit then why wouldn't a documentary deserve a writer? The director of the film would be the issue. If a documentary has a writer, then where does the director fit in? The man behind the camera is the one spending the time sifting through the information to make a solid story. The writer makes me think there is an amount of deceit involved in the film when I see that credit.

I'm not a documentary filmmaker, so I would like to know if I'm completely off on this? Is there a bigger job that I'm not seeing here? Let me know!