PR Newswire: CIPB Honors Winning Documentaries and Challenges PBS To Stop Shutting Out Independent Filmmakers (excerpt)

April 25, 2001

WASHINGTON, April 25 /PRNewswire Interactive News Release/ -- At an April 27th board meeting, directors of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting (CIPB) will announce the winners of CIPB's national documentary film competition and call on PBS to stop shutting out independent filmmakers. None of the winning films have been accepted for PBS national broadcast, but all have been judged "Ready for PBS" by juries of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers.

CIPB chapters in major cities across the country will feature the documentaries in public screenings and promote them for play on PBS member stations. KBDI Boulder (Colorado Public Television) recently became the first PBS member station to schedule the films for airing. The films provide in- depth examinations of controversial issues, like human rights violations of the Kurds in Turkey, Falun Gong in China or civil rights movement in the U.S. and labor's struggle against multi-national corporations in the new global economy.

Former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, a member of the CIPB board, states, "Issue oriented independent documentaries serve public broadcasting's primary mission to educate and engage viewers as citizens. It is tragic that financial dependence and political intimidation have subverted PBS's will to provide an important alternative to the corporate controlled commercial broadcasters."

Producer Barbara Trent, another CIPB board member, will announce the winners. Trent's own film, The Panama Deception, won the 1993 Academy Award for "Best Documentary Feature," but was rejected by PBS. [...] Trent called it "censorship."

News of the awards reached Academy Award winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler who commented: "Nothing will deter dedicated socially conscious image makers from creating artful documentaries. As communicators we must dedicate sufficient energies to break through the corporate wall and convince Public Television to serve the public."

[...] Also honored will be Emmy-award winning producer Danny Schechter for Falun Gong's Challenge to China. Branded "counterrevolutionaries" by the Chinese government, the Falun Gong have suffered 70,000 arrests and 189 deaths. According to Schechter, "These are the kinds of compelling human rights stories that too rarely get told on PBS."

[...]

Speaking to CIPB's proposal for an independently funded Public Broadcasting Trust to provide the financial security required for journalistic integrity, stage and film star Alec Baldwin observed, "The PBS mission is the same now as when it was chartered during Lyndon Johnson's administration: to provide programming that may not be 'appropriate or available for support by advertising.' What has happened since then? Politics and money, which have severely limited PBS's range and damaged its once estimable reputation. Depoliticizing PBS's budget will benefit all Americans. Democracy is about participation. Let's help PBS to inform our democracy."