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MEDIA-US: Public Broadcaster Pulls TV Documentary on Islamism
By Khody Akhavi
WASHINGTON, Apr 18 (IPS) - The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has
dropped a documentary film purporting to show the struggles of U.S.
"moderate" Muslims against Islamic extremists from a television series
airing this week on more than 300 U.S. public television stations.
No sooner had PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
excluded "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Centre" from the
series "America at a Crossroads" than the film's producers accused the
station of suppressing their views as part of "an ideological vendetta."
"This is a well-documented, textbook case of the abuse of taxpayer funding
by elements in the public broadcasting system to advocate their agenda and
ensure that people who have a different agenda don't get on the air," said
Frank Gaffney, one of the film's producers, as quoted in the conservative
Washington Times. "The public ought to be allowed to see a film which PBS
doesn't want them to see."
"Islam vs. Islamists" was one of 21 documentaries commissioned by the CPB,
a private, congressionally charted agency that administers federal money
for public radio and television. The effort provided 20 million dollars in
grants for independent filmmakers to develop films about the "challenges
and opportunities America faces in the wake of the September 11 attacks,"
according to CPB website.
The film was not selected because of what PBS executives described as
editorial deficiencies.
"In fairness to Mr. Gaffney, we recognise that he believes his film is
completed," CPB spokeswoman Louise Filkins told IPS. "Public broadcasting
officials have expressed concerns that the film may not comply with
established PBS standards."
Executives at WETA, the Washington D.C. TV station overseeing the series
for PBS, say the documentary was cut because its agenda was irresponsible
and lacked the obligation of fairness.
"The writing is alarmist and overreaching without adequate context and
specific information to justify the tone and degree of generalisation,"
wrote Crossroads series producer Leo Eaton to Gaffney in an evaluation of
the documentary's final cut. "There are awkwardly phrased assertions,
convoluted reasoning, and implications of connections between subjects
without evidence."
A series of written exchanges between PBS and Gaffney, posted on the
right-wing website familysecuritymatters.org, underscores the fundamental
conflict between the station and the film's producers. According to
Gaffney, the problem is not that his film has "a point of view."
"Rather, it is that mine is perceived to be other than a left-wing one,"
he wrote in a memo to Michael Pack, senior vice president of television
programming at CPB.
Aminah Beverly McCloud, the director of the Islamic Studies program at
DePaul University in Chicago, who advised WETA on the Crossroads
Initiative, told IPS that "Islam vs. Islamists" touched on a topic little
explored in the media, but that the film lacked coherence and ultimately
did not fit with Crossroads main theme.
"It's not about America, and it's not about the war on terror. It's
basically the experiences of individuals, with no real explanation of what
the topic is," McCloud said.
"It's not about a left bias or a right bias, or else Richard Perle's film
wouldn't have been there," she added, referring to "The Case for War: In
Defence of Freedom," a film by Bush administration official Perle, that
advocates neoconservative policies and was one of those selected by CPB.
The Crossroads initiative developed amidst Republican efforts to diversify
the voices in public television by financing more conservative programming
to balance a schedule that former CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson saw as
overly liberal. Tomlinson resigned in November 2005 after the agency's
inspector general released a report critical of his leadership, including
evidence that he had violated the organisation's ethical code by using
"political tests" in the hiring of high-level candidates.
Gaffney, who is also the president of the hawkish Centre for Security
Policy, and his co-producer Alex Alexiev, CSP's vice president, approached
Canadian novelist and filmmaker Martyn Burke to make the film with 675,000
dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds.
The right-wing Washington-based think tank seeks to "undermine the
ideological foundations of totalitarianism and Islamist extremism,"
according to its website. CSP's advisory council also includes current and
former high-level aides in the George W. Bush administration, such as
Eliot Abrams and Douglas Feith.
The think tank's initiatives include "The Islamist Project," which aims to
research and raise awareness about "the threat of Islamofascism." CSP
views "non-Islamist Muslims" as natural allies in the fight against "the
repressive, totalitarian ideology of Islamists," according to its website.
In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Burke argued that his
film became the target of "almost hysterical critiques" from WETA.
"What PBS/WETA attacked us on was they wanted us, in our opinion, to
become virtually apologists for the Islamists, those who are the
fundamentalists in this world," he said. "They demanded I fire my two
partners (Frank Gaffney an Alex Alexiev), who brought me into this film,
because my partners were conservative."
Crossroads series producer Leo Eaton called Burke's claims that he was
asked to fire Gaffney and Alexiev because of their political opinions
"totally misleading." In a letter to the editor published in the
Washington Times, Eaton wrote that both PBS and CPB expressed initial
concerns that the editorial focus of the film "too closely echoed" the
opinions of the producers, who hold official positions at the Centre for
Security Policy.
"It is how Messrs. Gaffney and Burke choose to frame and structure their
characters and stories that hasn't yet met PBS standards," Eaton wrote.
"[They] have chosen to 'attack the messenger' rather than trying to
correct the message."
In an op-ed in Tuesday's Washington Times, Gaffney reiterated his
complaint that "Islam vs. Islamists" was being suppressed and went on to
equate PBS's refusal to air the film with the recent repression by
government riot police of Russian protesters in Moscow's Pushkin Square.
More than 200 protesters, including former world chess champion Garry
Kasparov, were arrested during the clashes.
"I have watched with horror as techniques out of Mr. [Vladimir] Putin's
playbook have been applied to prevent the telling of the story of
freedom-loving Muslims who - like the Kasparovs of Russia - warn about
the ominous rise of totalitarian ideologies in their communities, and what
that portends for the rest of us," said Gaffney.
(END/2007)
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