PBS to air Islam vs Islamists Updated and bumped
posted at 9:30 pm on May 24, 2007 by Bryan
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We Vented about Frank Gaffney’s documentary, which PBS had suppressed, here. And the trailer is here.
Now there’s a deal that will make the film available to 354 public TV stations nationwide. With a slight catch.
A documentary billed as “the film PBS doesn’t want you to see” will at long last get a national audience.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) announced a joint agreement yesterday to make “Islam vs. Islamists” available to the 354 Public Broadcasting Service member stations across the nation as a “stand-alone” TV program, with a little extra embellishment.
“We plan to distribute the film to any public broadcasting station that wants it. We’ll package it and also produce some sort of discussion to accompany the film, and give it some context,” OPB President Steve Bass told The Washington Times yesterday.
Details like airtimes and dates, and the nature and extent of the “context” that will be added to the show, have yet to be hammered out. We’re awaiting a reaction from Mr. Gaffney to the deal, and we’ll have that reaction here when we get it.
Update: We have a reaction from the producers of Islam vs Islamists.
The travesty that has characterized the public broadcasting system’s handling of a taxpayer-underwritten documentary, “Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center,” continued with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announcing yesterday that it had reached an agreement with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) to distribute the film. Unfortunately, while this announcement was momentarily perceived as a victory by many who have been outraged by the suppression of this movie by the Public Broadcasting Service and its Washington station, WETA, in reality it amounts to nothing more than a desperate effort by CPB to dispose of the film in the face of mounting pressure from Congress, the media and the public to allow its immediate, national distribution.
The rest of ABG Films’ reaction is here.
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who really cares. once congress and Bush hand our country over to illegals we can let the wetbacks fight it out with the ragheads.
MikeG on May 24, 2007 at 2:56 PM
3…2…1…
natesnake on May 24, 2007 at 2:58 PM
“stand alone”
much like the US is doing in the face of Islamofascism.
Context or spin?
ej_pez on May 24, 2007 at 2:59 PM
Nice Mike, enjoy your deserved bannination.
Bad Candy on May 24, 2007 at 3:02 PM
Yep, that appears to be “demonizing Islam”. But why is it demonizing Islam?
The answer:
Emphasis mine.
Actually, that’s only part of the reason – the other being the left’s take on threats that aren’t climate related or Republican:
Ignore it, and it will go away; and if it doesn’t, throw money at the problem and put it on a pedestal.
Rick on May 24, 2007 at 3:04 PM
Maybe PBS will subtitle it with scarequotes and everything. Just to be sure that we get it.
Jewel on May 24, 2007 at 3:06 PM
Thanks for your time, Mike.
Rick on May 24, 2007 at 3:07 PM
Good … be interesting to know behind the scenes that finally got this pushed forward.
darwin on May 24, 2007 at 3:10 PM
Like,
If you show it we give the jihad nuts the names and addresses of all your loved ones
abinitioadinfinitum on May 24, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Yup, MikeG will no longer be joining us.
Bryan on May 24, 2007 at 3:18 PM
Adios muchacho!
omnipotent on May 24, 2007 at 3:19 PM
I always like someone affiliated with PBS to tell me what to think before I come to my own haphazard conclusions. Do they have private trainers that can come to my house and watch with me?
NellE on May 24, 2007 at 3:20 PM
Keep the pressure on PBS. I wanna see this documentary.
A real documentary that is! Not a propaganda Michael Moore piece of trash.
Oh and, bub bye MikeG…. (ײַ)
Kini on May 24, 2007 at 3:21 PM
Bryan, you must be busy or something. I was hoping the ban would immediately follow the “3…2…1…”.
natesnake on May 24, 2007 at 3:23 PM
You know, the way they package Bill Moyers’s lopsided propaganda pieces with “discussions” to provide “some context.” I mean, really, what could go wrong? They’d probably even let real Muslims from CAIR participate!
Blacklake on May 24, 2007 at 3:27 PM
I can’t wait to see the context…Who will be contexting to the viewers? Hooper? Armstrong? Bedier? Izzadeen? ;)
At least the film will finally be on the air.
forest on May 24, 2007 at 3:29 PM
Maybe you wanna delete said comment, given how they tend to be used by various leftists?
Bad Candy on May 24, 2007 at 3:44 PM
“We plan to distribute the film to any public broadcasting station that wants it”
That is the key right there. How much ya wanna bet they all say they don’t want it.
crosspatch on May 24, 2007 at 3:47 PM
I’ll believe it when I actually see it on my tv.
4shoes on May 24, 2007 at 3:55 PM
Edited?
Drtuddle on May 24, 2007 at 4:54 PM
Bryan, thanks for banning MikeG. You did us all a tremendous favor. There is no call for that kind of close-minded and bigoted language on this forum or anywhere else for that matter.
todd76705
todd76705 on May 24, 2007 at 5:12 PM
I just hope that when PBS does finally air this documentary they don’t chop it all up in the editing room and sugar-coat the message it brings.
todd76705 on May 24, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Omigod, I can just imagine the “discussion” that PBS will include to spin the film:
PBS: Here to discuss the dangerous and unbalanced conservative polemic we just watched are members from representing the ideological spectrum of the Muslim community in America. Allow me to introduce Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR; Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former Yale student and ambassador-at-large for the Taliban; and Abdullah al-Ghamdi of the Muslim American Society, representing the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Mr. Hooper, why do you think conservatives slander Muslims like this?
Hooper: I don’t know. They just hate other religions, I guess. There’s a lot of bigotry and ignorance in America about Islam which the conservatives feed, as we all can see in this horrible, horrible so-called documentary. It’s clearly the work of extremists.
Hashemi: Everday we in the Taliban would tell the media we are a religion of peace but there is a conspiracy to undermine our message of tolerance.
al-Ghamdi: They always focus on the jumbo jets flying into to the towers, car bombings, snuff videos, and that sort of thing but never on the Jews in Mossad who actually perpetrated those crimes. We’re getting a bum rap.
Tantor on May 24, 2007 at 5:56 PM
Can I get odds …
yo on May 24, 2007 at 7:18 PM
“Edited?”
Nah, the one or two stations that air it will probably show it at 3am on a Wednesday so both of you who are watching better record it.
crosspatch on May 24, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Thanks, what an ahole.
kahall on May 24, 2007 at 7:44 PM
Aye, there’s the rub:
And can someone show me a PBS that “wants it”?
Jaibones on May 24, 2007 at 9:03 PM
I have a feeling MikeG is in the Military. He knows how to dehumanize known enemies and isn’t afraid to do so.
MrC_5150 on May 24, 2007 at 9:36 PM
I hope they distribute coffee mugs with the film! I like coffee with my bacon.
SouthernGent on May 24, 2007 at 9:53 PM
How many conservatives donate to PBS and their fund raising drives? Not many I’ll bet. So I guess PBS knows their audience and skews the truth toward their lefty agenda.
csdeven on May 24, 2007 at 9:54 PM
Anybody know what’s going on in Lebabnon??? Watching the FOX news coverage is about as useful as the “loud noises in Haiti” Onion spoof from a couple weeks ago…
db on May 24, 2007 at 9:57 PM
I would never use such languange but in a thread specifically about censorship it is ironic that many posts here are in favor of censorship. Just a slightly different censorship then that which prompted the thread…
Resolute on May 24, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Censorship is the government blocking free speech. What we do by banning MikeG is freedom of association, or in this case, the freedom not to associate.
Bryan on May 24, 2007 at 10:02 PM
From the lawyer’s letter it seems that they are trying to get free of PBS interference altogether so that they can make their own separate distribution deal. I would love to see it make it to court and get some of those people on the stand, but I will be fine with just letting it be seen finally.
bbz123 on May 24, 2007 at 10:21 PM
You are free to censor whatever you don’t like on the soapbox you run since you aren’t the government. I’m not saying you violated the first amendment. That doesn’t mean it isn’t censorship when you stop someone from communicating in an ostensibly public forum. Perhaps most here think this is a good case of censorship. It doesn’t eliminate the irony in this thread.
Resolute on May 24, 2007 at 10:26 PM
That has got to be painful for liberals at PBS to schedule a documentary critical of their favorite religion since 9/11: Islam.
januarius on May 24, 2007 at 10:31 PM
I guess I’ll put in a request to my local PBS station and see if I get a dismissive response.
forest on May 24, 2007 at 10:51 PM
“Anybody know what’s going on in Lebabnon?”
As I type this it isn’t even 6am on Friday (the Islamic eqiv. of Sunday). Give the stringers a chance to finish morning prayers and we should start hearing some new news from Middle Eastern outlets in about 2 or 3 hours time.
crosspatch on May 24, 2007 at 10:53 PM
Really? I can’t find that particular definition in any dictionary I have at home, nor can I find it in any online dictionary.
MrC_5150 on May 24, 2007 at 11:03 PM
“Censorship is the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. Typically censorship is done by governments, religious groups, or the mass media, although other forms of censorship exist.”
This is the first line from wikipedia – not always reliable, but easy to find.
Anyway, PBS falls under “government” and “mass media” descriptions – Hot Air banning someone for being an abusive jerk doesn’t fit the category. Interestingly, rather than simply “disappearing” the offending comment, the banning was done in the full light of day – very unlike how the mass media does its rampant stealth editing online.
forest on May 24, 2007 at 11:14 PM
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)”
Pot, meet kettle.
Does anybody think that this film will get even an airing, let alone a fair shake with two liberal loving corporate entities?
kevcad on May 24, 2007 at 11:27 PM
I just finished Bob Spencer’s “The Truth About Mohammad.” Yikes! What an eye opener. If we want to know what pre-historic and early civiliztion releigion was like, we don’t have to look very far.
Mojave Mark on May 25, 2007 at 12:31 AM
(Dude, I need a spell checker.)
Mojave Mark on May 25, 2007 at 12:31 AM
PBS has too many commercials for non-commercial t.v.
And is afraid of anything that doesn’t tow the multiculti kuumbayah line.
Islam MUST be peaceful.
So they need to slant the reporting to agree with the WISH.
Afraid to read about Mohammad’s dismal, slave-holding, pedophilia-promoting, war-mongering career, honestly.
Or examine the 1400 year long, Nazi-like history of Muslim conquests, spreading from the ME, across North Africa, into Spain, up in the Balkans, overwhelming Turkey, annihilating Buddhist Afghanistan, subsuming Malaysia, ad nauseam.
The Whitewash Network prefers to keep painting smiley faces across the Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Jain, Hindu, pagan, and Arabian polytheist sepulchres left behind by the marauding Mohammedans.
PBS = Please Be Silent (about the real problem).
profitsbeard on May 25, 2007 at 1:21 AM
Resolute on May 24, 2007 at 10:26 PM
The difference here is what’s in Bad Taste, not censorship. Putting ourselves on the same level as the Kos Kids is likened to Bush flinging insults like Harry Reid does. It is beneath us all to lump ethnicities as such. Comment all you wish, but when comments like MikeG’s cross the line of decency then it’s time to take the party elsewhere.
Kini on May 25, 2007 at 1:48 AM
Well said.
MirCat on May 25, 2007 at 3:07 AM
Well between hotair, Littlegreenfootballs, michellemalkin, and jihadwatch, I will know what these pissants added to it in order to show it in their *good conscience*.
I say we should defund PBS now anyway. Sick of the power play with these peckers…ever since I saw that sesame street with them damn muslims under a tree having a picnic telling the little kids how peaceful they were.
BULLSHIT. My kid will never watch sesame street again.
Highrise on May 25, 2007 at 3:14 AM
I, for one, will watch the program or purchase a DVD of it whenever it airs. I dislike PBS intensely.
Foxnews.com has an update on the fighting near our family village…
Zorro on May 25, 2007 at 6:52 AM
Everyone had to agree to this sites “Terms” when signing up. I understand people get passionate but rules are rules. Personally I enjoy the level of debate at Hot Air sans slurs and expletives. However if you crave debate with a limited vocabulary strewn with obscenities any liberal blog will be more than accommodating.
repvoter on May 25, 2007 at 12:12 PM
From the letter, the lawyer seemed to say that his client, the producer of the film, is now separated from the contract with there actions. Does this not mean that he can now freely distribute the film as he sees fit.
I know this is a lawyers threat and it will take much litigation but it seems that if the contract is found to be in breach, he can distribute this through widescreen theatres and make some money off of it. I would be glad to pay to see this on the silverscreen if I knew it would help this guy and get the word out.
DrM2B on May 25, 2007 at 3:32 PM
Banning a member for employing NO TASTE isn’t censorship, and what is lost on you is the fact that his comment is still available to read, so any thoughts of censorship vanish, even by the terms of that Wiki definition. What the folks who run the Daily Kos or DU perform is much more like censorship, in that any comment they don’t like disappears.
MikeG hasn’t been silenced, whoever he/she is, merely disallowed from continuing to fail the standards for membership established by this site.
Freelancer on May 26, 2007 at 3:40 AM
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