-Caveat Lector-
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Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that
he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce, the Devils
Dictionary
NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
------ Forwarded Message
>
>
> THE ARTICLE SALON WON¹T RUN ABOUT A FILM PBS WON¹T AIR
> By Danny Schechter
> October 8, 2002
>
> When I first wrote this article in late August, I submitted it to the online
> mag SALON that expressed interest, then forgot about the piece, then found it,
> then was considering it, and then was not responding to my various attempts to
> elicit a decision because of my feeling that it should run before the
> election. Their initial response was concern about assuring that David
> Horowitz, their commentator on the right, had a chance to respond. I agreed
> but sought assurances that it would not be given to him in advance of
> publication. They agreed to that. But then, as the weeks went by, I began to
> suspect that it was going to be axed.
>
> Finally, in early October I was told that a NY based editor hadn¹t time to
> edit it, and then that they wanted to do ³more reporting² as if this piece was
> being offered as a tip for them to run with, not a story based on my
> experience. I was asked again about Horowitz¹s views as if the on-line mag was
> afraid to stir the cannons of quick to ignite polemical broadsides. While he
> is part of the story, it is only a tangential part. But, again, I suspect, his
> presence in it led to them finally ³passing² or killing it. Happily, it will
> see the light of my role at mediachannel.org.
>
> I am furious about the PBS decision to suppress this film, but hardly
> surprised. Fortunately, some Americans will get to see it because ITVS,
> theindependent television service that filmmakers fought for, is distributing
> it to PBS stations and some are carrying it. Find out if it will be on where
> you live. For more info., visit itvs.org/countingondemocracy and
> globalvision.org to order copies.
>
> Danny Schechter
> Editor Mediachannel.org
>
>
>
>
> An Old Story With a New Twist
> THE FLORIDA FIASCO CHANGED THIS COUNTRY:
> WHY WON¹T PBS SHOW THE UNTOLD STORY?
>
>
>
> In a typical understatement, The New York Times called the 2000 vote in
> Florida the most ³flawed and fouled up election in American history.²
> Everyone knows who won, but few realize that a whopping 175,000 ballots went
> uncounted in balloting, which turned on 537 votes when the Supreme Court
> stepped in. Even fewer know about purges from the voter rolls or how the
> recount in key counties was undermined, if not deliberately delayed, and, in
> effect, sabotaged.
>
> When it was over, the new Administration asked Americans to forget Florida, to
> ³move on² or ³get over it.² Much of the media did just that--never fully
> investigating the charges of voting irregularities and claims of
> disenfranchisement by minorities. (Even the Justice Department sued three
> Florida counties on voting rights issues.) After September 11, the
> ³newspaper of record² quipped that the Florida debate shifted from ³who won?²
> to ³who cares?²
>
> In truth, millions do care. Many were shocked when new ballot machines
> misfired in Florida once again during the 2002 primary. Others commented that
> voter turn out had fallen to 30% nationwide. One TV journalist suggested that
> there might be a ³voter boycott² underway. Many of these problems surfaced
> for all to see during the 2000 election that was covered and miscovered only
> as a horse race as if only the main candidates had a stake in its outcome.
> Later, the networks were forced to apologize to Congress for their ³serious
> mistakes² in their screwed up, deceptive and inept election-eve forecasting.
> When it was over, they dropped the story like a hot potato with no follow up.
> Their long delayed ³media review² was an incomprehensible mishmash that was
> interpreted in some, but not all, newspapers as validating a Bush verdict.
> Many media critics challenged the media consortium for misrepresenting their
> findings and ³burying the lead² which showed a narrow Gore victory.
>
> Case closed.
>
> Of course since then, over a year after the election, the federal government
> sued three Florida counties for voting rights violations. Other cases were
> heard in the Florida courts. At the end of August, a tiny item moved on the
> Associated Press wire: ³The NAACP's lawsuit over Florida's disputed 2000
> presidential election appears headed for a close as the state and two counties
> the only remaining defendants have agreed to a settlement, attorneys said
> Tuesday. Attorneys would not discuss terms of the settlement. The
> class-action lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of
> Colored People and other civil rights groups argued voters were
> disenfranchised during the on Nov. 7, 2000 election; it included allegations
> that blacks were kept from voting in some counties.²
>
> These items were reported but not widely followed up on. They were hardly
> bathed in national television attention. The media had moved on.
>
>
>
> THE QUESTIONS THAT REMAINED
>
>
>
> But for some, big questions nagged at the national conscience. Like the ones
> my colleague Faye Anderson, a one time Republican and now an African American
> political consultant, and I investigated for a new film called ³Counting on
> Democracy² which takes a new look at the untold story in the context of the
> fight for voting rights.
>
> The film is narrated by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee who worked on earlier films
> with Martin Luther King on the struggle of the 1960¹s civil rights movement on
> the same issue. Our film is not about Gore or Bush but the still outraged
> voters of Florida and all Americans who watched what happened there with
> disgust and embarrassment.
>
> In making the film, we tried very hard to avoid strident voices and conspiracy
> theorists, instead elaborating on the argument that a ³tyranny of small
> decisions² was responsible. We sought out credible figures including civil
> rights leaders, and top journalists with Newsweek, and the New York Times. We
> even featured the President of the Associated Press. We tried to interview
> leading Florida Republicans too, but they all refused, perhaps believing
> (correctly it may turn out) that the film would be perceived as ³biased² if
> they were not part of it. We told PBS before the decision that they refused
> to respond. It didn¹t matter. Their absence just proved ³bias² on our part.
>
>
>
> REPRESENTING ALL SIDES.
>
>
>
> We did manage to get two top members of the GOP including the man who ran the
> Bush Campaign¹s recount-stopping strategy, and a GOP former Governor. We
> also showed an interview with Florida Elections Director Clayton Roberts and
> testimony by Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris. On the
> Democratic side, we spoke with members of Congress, the lawyer who argued in
> the Supreme Court and the head of theGore campaign, among others. She admitted
> that they had made big mistakes that cost them the election. The main
> characters were voters, labor organizers and civil liberties union monitors.
> The film indicts Bush and Gore equally for compromising their commitment to
> small ³d² democracy to get elected.
>
> After a yearlong battle of our own, we raised the money to make the film. We
> did so in the spirit of a call by Alex Jones of Harvard University¹s Center on
> the Press, Politics and Public Policy who wrote in the New York Times: "The
> answer is tough investigations of what happened in the voting and the vote
> counting, uncompromised by the false notion that avoidance of controversy will
> be healing. The answer is also tough reporting on what happened in Florida
> that does not confuse fairness with the unsatisfactory practice of quoting one
> strident and then its opposite in every story."
>
> A ³THRILLER²
>
> Counting on Democracy was hailed at a film festival. "This tale of race,
> political payback, voter fraud and justice deferred could have come out of a
> Hollywood thriller. But no‹this is the story of the 2000 Presidential election
> in Florida, " wrote the Taos Talking Picture festival that screened it to an
> enthusiastic SRO crowd. It was praised in the Palm Beach Post and licensed by
> the Independent Television Service for airing on public television.
>
> The ITVS, born out of the fight by US producers to get funding from the
> Corporation for Public Broadcasting when PBS was spending a small fortune
> overseas to buy shows from BBC enthusiastically embraced "Counting On
> Democracy." They paid for its completion and offered it to PBS for airing.
> Films with an ITVS imprimatur often have an inside track because they have
> gone through a due diligence process by public television professionals. We
> had rushed to get it done in time to be seen before this year¹s election. The
> film is timely, with updated information about reform efforts in Congress and
> Florida to fix our broken electoral system.
>
> PBS has now spoken. In early August, they decided they would NOT screen
> Counting on Democracy. They gave it a resounding "no:" no broadcast, and,
> then, a second no to distribution by the PBS "Plus" feed that gives local
> stations the option to air the show or not. Here¹s what ITVS told us they
> said: "They felt strongly that the program was not journalistic in that it
> tried to appear to be unbiased by including a Republican, but he was mocked
> and made to look silly. They felt it was "full of cheap shots" and the
> narration was overly simplistic. They felt that "due to the subject matter,
> care needed to be taken to present a more balanced look at the subject matter
> — even if the show ultimately had a point of view "and that wasn't the case."
>
> CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
>
> It is hard to respond to this type of a vague attack. As someone who has made
> over 200 magazine shows that aired on PBS stations, produced 50 segments for
> ABC¹s prime time 20/20 newsmagazine and directed ten major documentaries, I
> think I know something about journalistic standards, and would beg to differ.
> Suffice, it to say, we have "creative differences." As for only featuring
> three Republicans, we told PBS before they make theirdecision that other
> Florida Republicans refused to be interviewed. It didn¹t matter. To them,
> their absence just proved "bias" on our part.
>
> I must admit that I was not surprised by the nit picking which one political
> insider I know rightly labels an "alibi." It felt like that scene in the
> Shawshank Redemption where inmates line up for parole hearings knowing full
> well that the decision to reject them has already been made. PBS is not known
> for courage in broadcasting. Activists have fought for years against the
> banning of many independent documentaries that take on controversial issues.
> Rather than offer an outlet for hard hitting independent work, PBS invariably
> features blander fare built around "story telling" or high priced films about
> history rather than topical muckraking, save for Bill Moyer¹s new fine NOW
> series that even many PBS stations will not carry.
>
> Our company Globalvision has experienced PBS¹s rejection mania over the years
> when our award winning human rights series Rights & Wrongs (that aired on
> selected local PBS stations, not nationally) was rejected because, get this,
> "human rights is an insufficient organizing principle for a TV series" (unlike
> cooking!) Some stations considered our work "not corporate friendly." Others
> branded us, falsely, as one-sided left-wingers while continuing to broadcast
> right-wing fare with no such hesitations. Even Bruce Springsteen was
> denounced by a PBS exec. as a self-promoter when they rejected a non-profit
> film I produced on the making of the anti-apartheid song Sun City in l986. It
> later won the Independent Documentary Association prize, the top in the
> industry. PBS later aired another "making of documentary² on, but on a
> commercial project, Raiders of the Lost Ark. That program was produced by the
> for-profit company that made the blockbuster movie.
>
> IF NOT US, WHO?
>
> It turns out PBS also has another idea for how to treat the Florida issue
> too. No, not with a competing investigation or an expose that shares our
> focus. Oh no! PBS has opted instead, literally, to treat the issue as a
> joke, with a satirical show about Florida. Counting on Democracy¹ is out;
> counting on comedy is in.
>
> Again, here is what ITVS told us: "PBS did commission a documentary on the
> Florida recount. It is completed and will be on the PBS national schedule in
> October. The title is WHO COUNTS? ELECTION REFORM IN AMERICA. The show is
> very different from COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY. Here is a short description:
> "Comedian and Saturday Night Live" cast member Darrell Hammond and former CNN
> Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno headline Who Counts? Election Reform in
> America, to be broadcast on Thursday, October 17, 10 p.m. on PBS.
>
> "Who Counts? will combine original comedy and reporting on the 2000
> presidential election -- with balloting issues in Florida as a key element --
> in looking at election reform today. Darrell Hammond will portray Al Gore,
> Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and himself in all-new material written and produced
> especially for the one-hour program. He will be interviewed in character by
> Mr. Sesno, who will also narrate."
>
>
> MAKING FUN OF FLORIDA
>
> Behind their false characterization of our documentary and the surrealistic
> logic that prefers to make fun of Florida rather that explain what happened
> there, is the possibility of a more insidious scandal like the one that came
> to light in the very week that we learned that our film was being censored.
> It concerns an earlier PBS financial payoff to an aggressive conservative
> zealot who a decade ago crusaded against our South Africa Now TV 156 week
> series that critiqued apartheid every week. According to the Los Angles Times
> he was successful in getting the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, KCET, to drop
> the show and, then, later claimed a victory in his own publication for
> muzzling it. (Protests by the black community there later forced it back on
> the air.) He had labeled Nelson Mandela a "Marxist," and baited us with
> similar language for our tough reporting on his fight for freedom.
>
> His name is David Horowitz, a 1960¹s revolutionary leftist turned 1980¹s
> revolutionary rightist. He surfaced up as an activist-advisor in the George
> W. Bush Campaign in 2000. Years earlier, he was well known for his
> well-publicized attacks against progressive PBS programming and even the
> middle of the road documentary series Frontline. For years, Horowitz lobbied
> right wing congressman and Senators to pressure public television stations.
> He orchestrated calls for de-funding PBS, as well, which he denounced as part
> of the irresponsible "liberal media." He savagely attacked Bill Moyers for
> profiting off of public television.
>
> PAYING OFF THE RIGHT
>
> It now turns out, that while he was mouthing off publicly against PBS, he was
> privately meeting with former PBS President Ervin Duggan demanding money to
> produce a right-wing version of Frontline. Current, the public broadcasting
> trade publication reports this week on ³how Horowitz¹s campaign against
> liberal bias on public broadcasting opened the door to talks with CPB
> (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) leaders about corrective right leaning
> programs." Although he had no prior TV experience, he got $250,000 for a
> ³treatment² from CPB. According to his account, CPB and PBS later committed
> $1.3 million to the project. Duggan later turned against Horowitz, as many
> who know him tend to do. Horowitz still praises Duggan as ³fair minded²
> because ³he brought us into the system,²
>
> Was this payment a pay-off to quiet the hornet¹s nest of rightist pressure
> that he was stirring? He claims he drew up the project¹s proposals and was
> poised to profit personally. How do we know? No media outlet has exposed
> this political deal making and evident cave-in to pressure. PBS never told us
> about it either. At the time, Duggan was giving speeches denouncing both the
> right and the left to pretend at evenhandedness. He turned us down when we
> asked him to support our human rights series.
>
> We only know about wheeling and dealing now because David Horowitz himself has
> gone public about it, and not simply for purposes of self-aggrandizement. He
> is suing his former partner in the venture, claiming that he "enriched himself
> at my expense." This story is page one in Current, out in the very week that
> PBS kaboshed the broadcast of Counting on Democracy, no doubt fearing it might
> rankle the White House, ³due to the subject matter,² to quote PBS. Of course,
> their rejection was couched in the language of journalistic standards and
> concerns about "fairness."
>
> NEED FOR TRANSPARENCY
>
> Maybe its time to call for an investigation of PBS, starting with the slimy
> details of this Horowitz affair. At a time when Americans want transparency
> and accountability in their institutions, why not ask how many other
> right-wingers and Bush backers were offered similar deals. That probe might
> start with queries about programs made by Fred Barnes of Rupert Murdoch¹s
> Weekly Standard who also became a filmmaker overnight with PBS and CPB
> largesse.
>
> How does what happened in Florida fit into all of this? It shows how
> political PBS is, and how unwilling to carry programs that they think go too
> far. How many other important stories unwanted in the dumbed-down commercial
> media are also being axed by PBS, the only TV programming service with a
> mandate to serve the public interest? In their first year anniversary
> coverage of the fiasco in Florida, the editors of the Economist, the world¹s
> top magazine offered what they later called a "joke." They apologized to
> readers for declaring President Bush the winner in Florida because ³the
> election is STILL too close to call.² No one has apologized to the voters of
> America for what happened in Florida, a story that you still may not be able
> to find out about thanks to PBS¹s refusal to broadcast it.
>
> That "joke" is not so funny. It is an insult.
>
> And in fact, if you want to read something we used to call "funny business"
> about this ongoing story, here's a murky tale just posted on a website in
> Flori-DUH:
>
> "A car was being dredged up after sinking in a canal in Miami Dade County on
> August 9th, 2002. Divers who found the car also found a locked metal box that
> when opened contained uncounted ballots from the November 2000 election. The
> large majority of the presidential votes in the lost container were for Al
> Gore. Of the approximate 2500 soaked ballots over 1600 were for Al Gore. The
> election of 2000 just won¹t go away . Local police spokesperson Jeanne Pierre
> Dorvil stated that the matter would be investigated."
>
> You bet that ³investigation² if it ever occurs, won¹t be seen on PBS.
>
>
> Please help us get the word out on Counting on Democracy. Pass this story
> along. Your reaction is welcome. Counting on Democracy will be screened at
> the Hamptons Film festival on Oct 20th. It is available for screening in
> schools and communities as well. Write [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Voter March Editor's Note: Please come to the next filming of "Counting on
> Democracy at the Hamptons International Film Festival. For more information,
> click on Counting on Democracy.
>
>
------ End of Forwarded Message
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