Programming or Censorship?
enrico
How do we know the difference between programmatic decisions and censorship? It’s sometimes difficult to tell - beyond feeling suspicious - when something is not right for a particular distributor or broadcaster and when it’s been deliberately censored. That is, unless they tell you directly.
Such is the case for Alex Gibney and his film Taxi to the Dark Side. This article by Amy Goodman talks about the Discovery Channel’s discomfort with Gibney’s film. Gibney told Goodman, “Well, it turns out that the Discovery Channel isn’t so interested in discovery. I was told a little bit before my Academy Award nomination that they had no intention of airing the film, that new management had come in and they were about to go through a public offering, so it was probably too controversial for that. They didn’t want to cause any waves. It turns out Discovery turns out to be the see-no-evil/hear-no-evil channel.”
That said, some folks in the media have a different take. HBO feels it’s important and will broadcast Taxi in September 2008. Hats off to Sheila Nevins!
