They use primary sources, the subjects in their own words, to tell the story. There is no narrator. They may present conflicting views and leave it to the viewer to sort out. The makers may not know the ending when they start. For example, a documentary was made recently which started out by following 4 women recently diagnosed with breast cancer -- 2 were insured and 2 were not insured. The filmmakers followed them not knowing what the outcomes would be.
The doc on James Baldwin although made in 2017, uses only the words of James Baldwin. It gains power and impact by being as intimate and personal as it can be. There is no comforting narrator to tell us that everything worked out -- no "splaining" only the raw experience and Baldwin's perspective.
There is nothing wrong with Ken Burns style and I like his docs but I don't find them as engaging as those that are confident enough to let the subjects tell the story in their own words.
Others have criticized his exclusion of non-white perspectives across his variety of worthy subjects:
the omission of Latin Jazz from nineteen hours of Jazz. There were serious questions raised by Native American and Latino advocacy groups that Ken had skipped over the role that their veterans played in seven episodes of The War. It got so bad that members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus brought up the omission with PBS, which backed Burns, causing Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to remark that “the way PBS has handled this since the issue was raised has left a lot to be desired.”
Another historian, Martin Blatt, who worked at the National Service hosted a roundtable of colleagues to analyze problems with National Parks: American’s Best Idea and among many conclusions were observations that Native Americans might not have shared the sentiment in the title, given they were evicted from their tribal lands to make way for this bestest of ideas. Not much about this in twelve hours of running time.
https://observer.com/2016/08/chronically-overrated-the-ken-burns-effect/
That is a matter of subject rather than style but it fits with the idea that his documentaries play well with a certain audience and with corporate sponsors and that is style is tame and safe rather even when there is ample opportunity to tell more of the under-told stories in a more inclusive way.
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