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Can PBS Provide “Reality Check” on “Selma”?

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Filmgoers Should Have a Chance to See the Documentary

Editorial Writers Connect King’s Legacy to Today’s Headlines

Gregory Lee Named Editorial Director for NBA.com

Univision Shut Out of GOP’s 2016 Debates

Greg Anthony Called Too Much of a Liability After Arrest

Fox News Apologizes for False Reports on Muslims

It’s “Safe to Say” NBC Is Through With Cosby

Short Takes

Filmgoers Should Have a Chance to See the Documentary

Judy Richardson was a worker for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia from 1963 to 1966, the time depicted in the movie “Selma.”

She began a career in filmmaking as associate producer of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1985,” a 14-hour documentary series on the history of the civil rights movement that was broadcast on PBS in 1987 and 1990, and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1988.

Richardson calls “Selma” “a fine film.” But to set the record straight, she wants PBS to show the episode of “Eyes” that features the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. That suggestion was made in this column a week ago, but a PBS spokeswoman has been unavailable since then to say whether that is a possibility.

[Update: Spokeswoman Jan McNamara messaged on Tuesday, ” ‘Eyes on the Prize’ is not currently cleared and in rights for broadcast. The rights for the series are extremely complicated due to the amount of music and news footage that it features.”]

“Yes, I’ve also been recommending that 6th hour of Eyes I (Bridge to Selma) as a reality check to ‘Selma,’ ” Richardson messaged Journal-isms on Monday. Moviegoers have testified to the emotional power of the movie, but Richardson and others say that seeing documentary footage of the events could pack even more of an emotional punch — and correct some of the film’s historical inaccuracies.

As the nation celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday, “Selma” was part of the discourse. It ranked fifth in weekend box office receipts, according to boxofficemojo.com. Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote for the New York Times’ Sunday print edition, “I loved the movie and find the Oscar snub of its dazzling actors repugnant.

“But the director’s talent makes her distortion of L.B.J. more egregious. Artful falsehood is more dangerous than artless falsehood, because fewer people see through it.” Dowd also wrote, “The ‘Hey, it’s just a movie’ excuse doesn’t wash. Filmmakers love to talk about their artistic license to distort the truth, even as they bank on the authenticity of their films to boost them at awards season. . . .”

Two members of the Congressional Black Caucus took opposing views in op-ed pieces. In the Los Angeles Times, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., SNCC chairman at the time of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, which he helped lead, wrote Friday, “The role of art in our society is not to reenact history but to offer an interpretation of human experience as seen through the eyes of the artist. The philosopher Aristotle says it best: ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance.’ “

He added, “This movie is being weighed down with a responsibility it cannot possibly bear . . . .”

In the Dallas Morning News, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, began an op-ed piece Sunday, “The new, acclaimed motion picture Selma suggests that President Lyndon Baines Johnson was not an ardent supporter of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and that he and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a fragile relationship. Nothing is further from the truth. . . .”

Meanwhile, Barbara Reynolds, a journalist who collaborated with Coretta Scott King on a biography, complained in the black press and in the Washington Post, “The movie presents a Coretta who exists under a fog of fear as she endures the terror of Selma. It portrays a Coretta who blames her husband for leaving the family during his trips to lead the movement. It shows a Coretta who timidly acquiesces to the charges that her husband dishonored their marriage vows and tearfully asks if he loves his mistresses. That Coretta is pure Hollywood fiction. . . .”

Asked what “reality check” was needed, Richardson directed Journal-isms to comments she made in a radio interview about “Selma” last week on Washington’s WPFW-FM. “I know the difference between feature films and documentaries,” she said on the “On the Margin” program (audio, Jan. 14.)  “My piece is that if you’re doing a historical feature, you can have composite characters, you have made-up characters, you have lines that were never said in real history. I understand all of that, because the main thing is to make a really good story, well told.

“But for me, you use that artistic license in service to the real history, because the real history is so amazing and exciting and it includes all of these regular people who were leaders, not just participants, women who were leaders, not just with one or two lines. You have all this amazing history and you can do a really wonderful feature film.”

Richardson argued that mobilizing for voter rights was not begun by King or even her own SNCC, but by local people such as Annie Lee Cooper, who had been organizing for voter rights in Selma since the 1930s. Cooper was played in the film by Oprah Winfrey. Other women were likewise given less than their due, she said.

“The problem is that it is absolutely the old, traditional narrative: Dr. King came in, he saves the day. Yes, he is flawed and therefore what’s wonderful is he’s like us, but not really, because he is the only one who is leading those demonstrations in terms of leading the strategy. You see women in the front lines, as they were, in the demonstrations, but you don’t know that they were part of the leadership, making the decisions that moved the movement forward.”

Richardson also faulted the film for not doing well what the film is being praised for — showing ordinary African Americans taking charge of their own destiny. Young people were guiding the older leaders, not the other way around, Richardson said. It’s important for “young people to see themselves” as leaders, “as strategists, that’s what I’m saying.” Except for SNCC’s executive director, James Forman, who was 36, “we were 18-19-20 years old,” she said of herself and her SNCC colleagues.

Richardson was joined on the radio program by African American historian Peniel E. Joseph, who responded with a sentiment shared widely in discussions of the movie on social media, “all films are historically inaccurate.”

Richardson has been a visiting professor in Africana studies at Brown University and after “Eyes,” for which she was also education director, co-produced Blackside Inc.’s 1994 Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary, “Malcolm X: Make It Plain” (for PBS’s “American Experience”).

According to a biography for the HistoryMakers, she also “produced historical documentaries for broadcast and museums, with a focus on African American historical events, including: a one-hour documentary on the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre (South Carolina) for PBS; two History Channel documentaries on slavery and slave resistance; and installations for, among others, the National Park Service’s Little Rock Nine Visitor’s Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati), the New York State Historical Society’s ‘Slavery in New York’ exhibit, and the Paul Laurence Dunbar House (Dayton).”

Richardson acknowledged that her students at Brown had never heard of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and now they have.

Many of those who will be watching “Selma” likewise had never heard of “Eyes on the Prize,” which first aired in 1987 and was rebroadcast in 1993 and 2006. Hour 6 covers the Selma-to-Montgomery march, the subject of the film. “Eyes on the Prize II” covers 1964 to 1972, a time of riots and the birth of the black power movement.

However, Blackside, the production company, has gone out of business.

“Unfortunately, since there really is no Blackside, any decision about re-airing Eyes resides with PBS,” Richardson said. “I agree that Eyes II is really almost more relevant to today. I often show the Eyes II segment (‘A Nation of Law?’) on the Hampton-Clark Black Panther party assassination in Chicago to teachers’ professional development workshops, given how much it speaks to ‘stop and frisk’, Ferguson, Eric Garner, et al. You can get Eyes II on DVD through PBS if you’re an institution.”

The miniseries can be also found on YouTube.

Viewers who enjoyed the “Selma” film and those whose enjoyment came with an asterisk all deserve to see what other treatments of those events are available.

That move appears to be up to PBS. [Updated Jan. 20]

Editorial Writers Connect King’s Legacy to Today’s Headlines

The nation’s columnists, bloggers and editorial writers used the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to connect King’s legacy to the police killings of unarmed black men, to the infighting among the King children, to a day of service and to current racial inequalities.

About the King children, USA Today said, “At some point . . . the family’s attempts to obtain value crossed the line from reasonable to embarrassing. Perhaps most appalling was the children demanding to be paid when their father was honored with a statue on the Mall. It’s hard to imagine the heirs of others so honored — George Washington, for example, or the soldiers who died in Korea and Vietnam — insisting on a fee. It is a tawdry shadow on the legacy of one of America’s most remarkable leaders.”

Here are some perspectives on King:

Gregory Lee Named Editorial Director for NBA.com

Gregory H. Lee Jr., executive sports editor at the SunSentinel in Fort Lauderdale and immediate past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, has been named editorial director for NBA.com, Lee told social media colleagues on Tuesday.

“NBA.com is part of the league’s multimedia portfolio managed by Turner Sports,” Lee wrote. “Starting early next month I will [coordinate] NBA news coverage across platforms.

“I will supervise nightly game coverage during the heart of the NBA season, and more broadly oversee newsgathering and partnership development among other responsibilities. I am excited about the opportunity and at the same time am thankful for the past 2 and half years as executive sports editor of Sun Sentinel. The SunSentinel staff is top notch and will miss them greatly. I will also miss the beaches, but A-Town here I come.”

Lee is to be based at Turner Sports headquarters in Atlanta. His departure will leave three African American sports editors at daily newspapers, he told Journal-isms: Marcus Carmouche, sports manager at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans; Larry Graham, executive sports editor at UT San Diego; and Lisa Wilson, executive sports editor at the Buffalo News.

Spokesmen for Turner Sports were not available Tuesday morning.

According to the Turner Sports website, “The company’s digital portfolio includes Bleacher Report, NCAA.com and March Madness Live, and PGA.com, as well as an accompanying collection of mobile websites and connected device apps. Turner Sports and the NBA also jointly manage NBA Digital, which includes NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA LEAGUE PASS, NBA Mobile, the NBA Game Time App, NBADLEAGUE.com and WNBA.com.” [Added Jan. 20]

Greg Anthony Called Too Much of a Liability After Arrest

“Around dinner time on Friday night, the upper management for CBS Sports and Turner Sports learned that basketball broadcaster Greg Anthony had been arrested inside a room at a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., as part of an undercover operation targeting prostitution,” Richard Deitsch reported Monday for Sports Illustrated.

“Obviously, it was shocking news for both networks. According to the Washington Post, Anthony will be arraigned in court for the misdemeanor charge Feb. 3 and the maximum penalty, if convicted, is 180 days in jail. Working quickly and in conjunction with each another, executives at both places agreed on what they had to do heading forward. The following morning, Anthony was suspended indefinitely from his college basketball and NBA analyst jobs. . . .”

Deitsch also wrote, “There are some who would argue the punishment is too harsh and perhaps it is. But Anthony forced the hand of his bosses and CBS and Turner Sports brass could not afford to have him as part of its college coverage during the NCAA tournament. In addition to calling games, CBS Sports and Turner Sports announcers perform high-profile public appearances at these events. Having Anthony there with solicitation charges over him is a PR headache few networks are going to endure.

“There’s also the advertiser element. Some brands would be very uncomfortable with Anthony calling games in the near-term. There was very little debate between the top executives at both networks regarding the decision: Anthony is a talented broadcaster and well-liked at both places but he is not indispensable. . . .”

Fox News Apologizes for False Reports on Muslims

“Fox News took time out of four broadcasts on Saturday to apologize for four separate instances of incorrect information that portrayed Muslims in a negative light,” Brian Stelter reported Sunday for CNN.

“Several of the cases involved incendiary comments about ‘no-go zones’ in Europe, where Islamic law supposedly supersedes local law and where non-Muslims fear to go. Other media outlets have accused Fox of exaggerations and falsehoods, and even British Prime Minister David Cameron mocked one of the assertions. On Saturday, Fox apologized morning, noon and night.

“Jeanine Pirro issued the final correction of the day, at 9:10 p.m., for something her guest Steve Emerson said a week earlier: that Birmingham, England is a ‘totally Muslim city where non-Muslims don’t go in.’ Emerson was ridiculed for his comments, and he subsequently apologized. . . .”

It’s “Safe to Say” NBC Is Through With Cosby

“The Bill Cosby chapter appears to be officially over at NBC,” Cherie Saunders reported Friday for EURweb.com.

“NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt delivered the final nail in the coffin Friday morning at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. Asked if it’s safe to say that NBC will never do another project with Bill Cosby, he answered, ‘Yes, that’s safe to say.’ 

“NBC had been developing a multi-generational family sitcom with Cosby at the center, but the project was pulled after multiple women came forward with sexual assault allegations against the actor. Netflix also pulled its planned Cosby standup special and TV Land stopped airing reruns of ‘The Cosby Show.’

“The good news is — if there is any good news — unlike Netflix which had a special to run, or the ‘Cosby’ episodes that were running on a network, we were developing a script that we never even got a first draft of. So it wasn’t something that was imminently going forward or even into production. I guess I can only say that I’m glad that we’re out from under that. . . . .”

Short Takes

 

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