Tel-Chai Nation

There was controversy a short while ago over PBS' attempted oppression of a new Frank Gaffney documentary, Islam vs Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center, which focuses on moderate Muslims and their views on extremists. It was suppressed because even the views of moderate Muslims are not allowed in the eyes of the extremists like CAIR, to name but one.

Now, the Wash. Times says that they've agreed to make it available to 354 TV stations across the nation, but there's just one little thing here that's fairly telling (via Hot Air):

“We plan to distribute the film to any public broadcasting station that wants it. We’ll package it and also produce some sort of discussion to accompany the film, and give it some context,” OPB President Steve Bass told The Washington Times yesterday.

Gaffney's company has responded, and sums up what this is really saying:

The travesty that has characterized the public broadcasting system’s handling of a taxpayer-underwritten documentary, “Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center,” continued with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announcing yesterday that it had reached an agreement with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) to distribute the film. Unfortunately, while this announcement was momentarily perceived as a victory by many who have been outraged by the suppression of this movie by the Public Broadcasting Service and its Washington station, WETA, in reality it amounts to nothing more than a desperate effort by CPB to dispose of the film in the face of mounting pressure from Congress, the media and the public to allow its immediate, national distribution.

Yes, that pretty much sums up what's really the matter here, that PBS is more interested in just serving it out casually, assuming that it ever does get broadcast in the end, and in what context? Only time will tell, and until then, PBS cannot be trusted to truly deliver the goods here.

Labels: communications, islam