On the FRONTLINE of Content and Technology
By Arthur
April 8th, 2008 | documentary, internet | Comments
Starting in 2002, PBS Frontline “has streamed most of its documentaries free…part of an effort to reach younger audiences.”1 The New York Times reports that as a result of a MacArthur Foundation Grant, Frontline has been able to develop a much richer video experience. I cannot argue. After stumbling on the recently released Frontline documentary, Bush’s War, I found myself engaged in the layers of content on the site. Then I branched out to see some of the other projects completed with the same comprehensive coverage (The Medicated Chile, Bad Voodoo’s War, and Cheny’s Law).
Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Myers are the world’s preeminent evolutionary biologists. They are known for their activism and integrity. Recently Dawkins and Myers were contacted by a small Los Angeles production company to speak for a documentary. Producers for Rampant Films most likely knew that including the evolutionary duo would add legitimacy to their story, even as villains, so they misrepresented their motives in order to secure the interviews. Billed as focusing on the “the disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution, Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement,” [sic] Dawkins and Myers agreed to talk on camera.1 It was not until Myers was asked to leave a screening2 four months later that Myers learned the documentary, formerly named Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion, was retitled Expelled and used his and Dawkin’s interviews to further its thesis that “freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions.”3 Myers’s response sums up his frustrations.
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