PBS Documentary Controversy Demonstrates Why Bipartisan Screams Of Bias Do Not Mean That A Program Is Balanced. Or Wasn't Hijacked By Soft Islamists.
A couple weeks ago we got a tip dropped into our inbox about an upcoming PBS series called "America at a Crossroads". It was long, detailed, and had multiple links. So of course we blew it off, because (a) we were in the middle of a travel crunch and (b) we're retarded. Then we got a text message from a friend who was watching a PBS program about Muslims in America that included this guy in a somewhat less than completely negative light.
Of course, by the time we got around to blogging this, LGF had posted it a couple weeks ago. Even the Washinton Times has written on it. The very brief synopsis is that PBS was doing a series of films on post-9/11 life, and suddenly spiked a program on moderate vs. radical Muslims. The scandle is that the project was killed after review and manipulation by a couple of less than moderate Muslims who were brought in to review a film... condemning radical Muslims. After initially funding the film Islam vs. Islamists (to the tune of $700,000 of taxpayer funds), PBS rejected it in favor of a program that blurred the lines between radicals and moderates. In the process they hired several avowed Islamists and firing several conservatives.
Now there were apparently some standout episodes. Over at CT Victor Comras thinks that there were valuable parts of the program - which means that there were valuable parts of the program. A number of outlets have also pointed out that both the left and the right were dissatisfied by various parts of the program - the implication being that it was balanced. This, it shouldn't surprise you, is not the best argument that's ever been made.
Conservatives are claiming that the program was biased because it silenced actual moderates and presented radicals in a positive light. Leftists are claiming that the program was biased because it allowed Richard Perle to claim that "everybody thought Iraq had WMDs". We're unimpressed by that whining because, well, everyone really did think that Iraq had WMDs.For what will certainly not be the last time: it's not "balance" when both sides complain about "bias" if one side is objectively wrong and the other side is objectively right.
So the question is how this particular kind of bias - the masquerading of extremists as moderates - managed to suffocate this particular episode - about radical vs. moderate Muslims - so completely? And that's where the scandal comes in:
* At the very first meeting between accomplished Hollywood filmmaker and novelist Martyn Burke and Messrs. Eaton and Bieber, he was told to fire two of the executive producers on grounds they were associated with an “advocacy” organization as President and Vice-President respectively of the Center for Security Policy. This is a laughable pretext on the part of an organization that does very little that is not advocacy, albeit for leftist causes. – and asked point blank, "Don’t you check into the politics of the people you work with?"
* PBS/WETA then proceeded to hire as an outside "advisor" Prof. Aminah McCloud, a person known for her radical Islamist views and affiliations and support for the Nation of Islam’s leader and well-known anti-Semite Louis Farakhan. Barely two months after 9/11, Prof. McCloud opined to the Minnesota Pioneer Press newspaper that "we’re now becoming a police state like those nations we claim to abhor."... Ms. McCloud made a rough cut of their documentary available to the Nation of Islam, the subject of one their stories, in a complete breach of journalistic ethics and her confidentiality agreement with PBS. The Nation of Islam promptly threatened to sue the production company.
* An episode in the storyline documenting the efforts of a radical imam to introduce sharia rules in the Muslim community in Denmark by imposing a "blood money" settlement is judged by Eaton a positive development since "it’s a way of stopping bloodshed, not encouraging it."... Mr. Eaton... demanded of them to provide "objective clarity" on why sharia cannot co-exist side by side with the democratic judicial system within Western societies.
The final result was that the voices of several genuine moderates were excluded and silenced. We're not sure what kind of conspiring was going on behind the scenes - we're generally skeptical of conspiracy theories, and of any claim that posits mendacity where incompetence is a perfectly sufficient explanation. But somehow, a radical anti-Semite ended up being discussed as a moderate. And the steps that led to that outrage should be investigated.
References:
* Amir Abdel Malik Back On The UC Irvine Campus [MR]
* PBS Picked Radical Islamist to Review Suppressed Film [LGF]
* PBS shelves film on moderate Muslims [Washington Times]
* America At A Crossroads - Caution Needed When Dealing With the Muslim Brotherhood [CT Blog]
* PBS' Homage To Islamism [Investors Business Daily]
* So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq? [Slate]
Previously:
* A Real Chilling Effect - American Book Publisher Drops Anti-Jihadism Book Out of Safety Fears
* LA Times Bias
* Beit Hanun Meme Watch - (Interlude) Convergence of Bias - With This Simple Formula, You Too Can Produce Solid Anti-Israel Journalism
