WMD: THE FILM THAT TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IRAQ MEDIA WAR YOU NEVER SAW

[paineinthearse]

http://www.wmdthefilm.com/mambo/index.php

THE FILM THAT TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IRAQ MEDIA WAR YOU NEVER SAW



There were two wars going on in Iraq - one was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs, Weapons of Mass Deception.

The TV networks in America considered their non-stop coverage their finest hour, pointing to the use of embedded journalists and new technologies that permitted viewers to see a war up close for the first time. But different countries saw different wars. Why?

For those of us watching the coverage, war was more of a spectacle, an around the clock global media marathon, pitting media outlets against each other in ways that distorted truth and raised as many questions about the methods of TV news, as it did the armed intervention it was covering-and it some cases-promoting.

WMD, a 100 minute non-fiction film, explores this story with the findings of a gutsy, media insider-turned-outsider, former network journalist, Danny Schechter, who is one of America's most prolific media critics. Schechter says he "self-embedded" himself in his living room to monitor media coverage, by fastidiously tracking the TV coverage on a daily basis. He wrote thousands of words daily about the coverage for Mediachannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network, and then collected his columns, blogs and articles in a recently published book, EMBEDDED: Weapons of Mass Deception (Prometheus Books) . He has continued his one-man investigation with WMD, a two-hour indie non-fiction film that asks the questions that his media colleagues refused to confront before, during and after the war. Featuring footage from inside Iraq, and inside the media, WMD tracks the media war through February 2004.

A Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, and radio news director turned CNN and Emmy Award winning ABC News Producer, Schechter wears several hats at the same time. He is now an award-winning independent investigative journalist and filmmaker as well as an outspoken author. Danny Schechter is not afraid to take on his own industry. WMD busts through so-called "objective reporting" to challenge media complicity with the government and its cooperation in presenting the Iraq War the way it did. This is a hard-hitting, yet personal film that looks at the television war and asks why the American audience lapped it up and how the Pentagon helped shape media coverage.

Biographies

FILMMAKER

Danny Schechter - Dissector/Writer/Director/Producer
[e-mail]

Danny Schechter is a television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about media issues. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to Cover the Iraq War" (Prometheus Books, October 2003); "Media Wars: News At A Time of Terror (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); "The More You Watch, The Less You Know" (Seven Stories Press) and "News Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics" (Akashic) Books and Electron Press). He is the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network, and recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists' 2001 Award for Excellence in Documentary Journalism.

He has produced and directed many TV specials and documentary films, including "Counting on Democracy" about the electoral fiasco in Florida narrated by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee; the post 9-11 film We Are Family" (2002) shown at the Sundance Film Festival; "Nkosi: A Voice of Africa's AIDS Orphans" (2001) narrated by Danny Glover; "A Hero for All: Nelson Mandela's Farewell" (l999); "Beyond Life: Timothy Leary Lives" (1997); "Sowing Seeds/Reaping Peace: The World of Seeds of Peace" (1996); "Prisoners of Hope: Reunion on Robben Island" (1995, co-directed by Barbara Kopple); "Countdown to Freedom: Ten Days that Changed South Africa" (1994), narrated by James Earl Jones and Alfre Woodard; "Sarajevo Ground Zero" (1993); "The Living Canvas" (1992), narrated by Billy Dee Williams; "Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy" (1992, co-directed by Marc Levin and Barbara Kopple); "Give Peace a Chance" (1991); "Mandela in America" (1990); "The Making of Sun City" (1987); and "Student Power" (1968).

Schechter is co-founder and executive producer of Globalvision, a New York-based television and film production company now in its 16th year. He founded and exec-produced the series "South Africa Now" and co-produced "Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television. He has specialized in investigative reporting and producing programming about the interface between human rights, journalism, popular music and society. His career began as the "News Dissector" at Boston's leading rock station, WBCN. Later, Schechter was a producer for ABC NEWS 20/20. He produced 50 segments for ABC and won two national Emmys and was nominated or two others.

A Cornell University graduate, he received his Master's degree from the London School of Economics, and an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. He was a Neiman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, where he also taught in 1969. After college, he was a full time civil rights worker and then communications director of the Northern Student Movement, and worked as a community organizer in a Saul Alinsky-style War on Poverty program. Then, moving from the streets to the suites, Schechter served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966 on a Ford Foundation grant.

Schechter joined the start-up staff at CNN as a producer based in Atlanta. He then moved to ABC as a producer for 20/20. Schechter has reported from 49 countries and lectured at many schools and universities. He was an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Schechter's writing has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines including the The Nation, Newsday, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Studies Journal, Detroit Free Press, Village Voice, Tikkun, Z, and many others. Danny Schechter can be reached at [e-mail]


EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS

Anant Singh , Videovision Entertainment
Anant Singh, President of Videovision Entertainment, has produced over 50 motion pictures since its founding 18 years ago. All the films produced by VideoVision are distributed worldwide. The company has been responsible for bringing to the screen South Africa's major anti-apartheid films; some of them made during the apartheid era. They include A Place of Weeping, The Stick, Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. In 1996, the company produced, Paljas which was accepted as South Africa's first official entry for Oscar consideration.

VideoVision has had successful co-production relationships with international partners, the product of which are a number of quality films with internationally recognizable cast and renowned directors. Most of these pictures are released in the major territories including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Barbara Kopple, Cabin Creek Films
Barbara Kopple is one of America's pre-eminent documentary filmmakers with two Academy Awards for her distinguished work.

Rory O'Connor, Globalvision, Inc.
Rory O'Connor, a network veteran award-winning journalist and filmmaker is the President of Globalvision Inc.

Note: This is a re-post. I initially made it 2-3 weeks ago; it sank. Will Pitt did another 1-2 weeks ago; it sank. Please keep this alive.

p.s. If the film is not scheduled for your area, approach a friendly theatre and let the management know about it. There is a page on the website where you can submit venue information.

[TWiley]

1. Thanks for posting this

I am going to try to get a copy, or to watch it somehow.

There were several good documentaries that ran consecutively on The New York Times Channel last Saturday. There were 4 in all.

They focused on what happens when Intelligence breaks down, and they divided it into different categories.

One was when the administration goes fishing for the intelligence they want, and another was when governments lack the open minded sense of curiosity. All 4 episodes were good and included the September 11th attack in their reports along with other major events.

[ClintonTyree]

2. Out %#cking standing!

I hope this takes off as well as F 9/11 did, and more! It would be nice to wake the sheeple out of their brain dead state and demonstrate how they are being manipulated by the MSM. I think I'd travel some distance to see this.

[KoKo]

3. Grassroots Theater is what's needed to get this shown....a link:

http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us/projects/theatre-network.shtml
(I've sent this around to our Progressive Group here in my State, maybe DU'ers could send this to their network of Activists)


http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us/projects/theatre-network.shtml


Grassroots Theatre Network™

You've no doubt kept abreast of the controversy surrounding Michael Moore's shocking documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. In typical no-holds-barred style, Michael gaive us a far different picture of the Bush Administration than protrayed on the nightly news and in the mainstream press.(You can see the trailer for the film at www.fahrenheit911.com.)

As Peter Jennings noted on World News Tonight, the medium of documentary film is becoming the brave new weapon against assaults on Americans’ right to free speech. -- Movie theatres, house parties, and e-mails are still able to fly under the radar of government regulation -- they're the new voice of the increasingly-silenced American People.

Grassroots for AmericaSM (www.GrassrootsForAmerica.us) is rallying behind this movement to produce a new Grassroots Theatre Network™ – a link-up of bold movie theatres across the country willing to stand up and be counted by screening documentaries that address controversial political and social justice issues.

In the "tradition" of Fahrenheit 9/11, Grassroots for America will present a series of eye-opening documentaries, including Robert Kane Pappas' Orwell Rolls In His Grave, Bob Greenwald's recently released Unconstitutional, Sut Jhally and Jeremy Earp's Hijacking Catastrophe, Michael Paradies Shoob and Joseph Mealey's Bush's Brain, and Greg Palast's film Bush Family Fortunes at cooperating theatres over the next several months in our "Wake Up, America!" series.

http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us/projects/theatre-network.shtml

[paineinthearse]

4. Grand opening schedules.

FEBRUARY 4
NEW YORK CITY
Village East Cinemas
181 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003
Show times:
Friday: 1:10pm, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 10:00
Sat & Sun: 11:10am, 1:10pm, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:45
Mon - Thurs: 1:10pm, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:45
Please call to confirm times:
212.529.6998

NEW YORK CITY
New Metro
2626 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
Show times:
12:00pm, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00
Please call to confirm times:
212.865.3302

BUFFALO, NY:
Dipson Market Arcade Center 8
639 Main Street
Buffalo, NY 14203-1407
Show times:
Friday: 4:45pm, 7:10, 9:20
Sat & Sun: 2:00pm, 4:45, 7:10,9:20
Mon - Thurs: 4:45pm, 7:10, 9:20
716.855.3096

PORTLAND, OR
The Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd.
Portland, OR 97212
Show times:
Friday: 7:00pm, 9:00
Sat & Sun: 3:00pm, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00
Mon-Thurs: 7:00pm, 9:00
Please call to confirm times:
503.493.1128

FEBRUARY 7 & 8
GRAND RAPIDS, MI
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
41 Sheldon Blvd. SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
616.454.7000

FEBRUARY 18
EUGENE, OR
Bijou Art Cinemas
492 East 13th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97401
541.686.2458

February 9
Bethel, CT
Bethel Cinema.
Reception at 6:15. Film at 7:00.
Film will be introduced by guest speaker Jeff Green from the Independent Media Center.

February 9
Larkspur, CA
The Lark Theatre
Reception 6:30. Film 7:00.
Guest speaker will be Robert Collier, foreign affairs reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.

February 16
Silver Spring, MD
AFI
Reception 6:00. Film at 6:30.
Ben Scott and Craig Aaron of www.freepress.net will introduce the film.

February 23
San Francisco
The Landmark Bridge Theatre
Reception at 6:45. Film at 7:15.
Film will be introduced by Professor John McManus of www.gradethenews.org.

For more information please visit: http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us/projects/theatre-network.shtml

You can download our poster here:


For more information please e-mail [e-mail]

[Bozita]

5. Schechter visited with Bob McChesney on Sun -- listen to archive

Click on the Feb 6 show with John Nichols:

http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/default.htm

Media Matters with Bob McChesney

Sundays from 1 to 2 pm Central

Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests.  Listeners may call with comments or questions. 

Bob McChesney is a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“The media are central to all our lives,” he says. “Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society.”

more on Bob McChesney  |  Bob McChesney's web site

Find out what's on the show: join the media matters mailinglist!
This week on Media Matters

Feb. 13, 2005 Local activists discuss community and micro radio.

Media Matters Archives

Feb. 6, 2005 Special two-hour show with John Nichols of The Nation.

RealAudio | MP3 Download
Jan. 30, 2005 Professor Richard Falk, co-author of The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy.

RealAudio | MP3 Download
Jan. 23, 2005 Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States.

RealAudio | MP3 Download
Jan. 16, 2005 Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange and a co-founder of  Code Pink. 

RealAudio | MP3 Download
Jan. 9, 2005 Juliet Schor, author of Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture.

RealAudio | MP3 Download
Jan. 2, 2005 David Brock, author and director of Media Matters for America.

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more...

[Karenina]

6. Oh Danny Boy!!!

:loveya:

[donsu]

7. kick

nt