The results of our News Hunt for good journalism on the 2008 elections are in! From July 1 - 14, P.O.V. and PBS Engage joined forces with NewsTrust.net, a nonprofit social news site devoted to finding good journalism, to review current news stories about the 2008 elections with a focus on the voting process from the perspective of the American man and woman on the street. Over this two week period, reviewers examined articles on election reform coverage from a wide range of sources, from The New Yorker and The New York Times to The Nation and The Huffington Post. See the top stories and a summary of what reviewers found over on the NewsTrust.net blog.
The News Hunt was one of the special features for the Election Day website, and while it's now closed, the hunt for good journalism never ends. Check out NewsTrust.net for more opportunities to review news stories and to participate in the effort to highlight quality journalism.
Election Day shows us that many stories about the American voting process and the need for election reform slip beneath the radar of mainstream news coverage. Now that we're just a few short months away from Election Day 2008, we want to take a close look at how
these issues are being covered today.
For the next two weeks, P.O.V. and PBS Engage are partnering with NewsTrust.net, a nonprofit social news site devoted to finding good journalism, to review current news stories about the 2008 elections with a focus on the voting process from the perspective of the American man and woman on the street. We invite you to participate in this "news hunt" — think of it as a scavenger hunt for good journalism — by signing up on the NewsTrust site and evaluating the media you're already consuming every day.
To get started, simply sign up for an account on the NewsTrust.net site. Then you can rate as many articles as you like, using NewsTrust's easy-to-use online tools. From the site's homepage, click the "Politics" tab, then under "Topics>U.S. Elections," click "Presidential Election 2008." On that page, you can click any article title to go directly to the full article on the website where it was posted so you can read it thoroughly. When you're ready, go back to NewsTrust; a review form will appear in a separate window, inviting you to rate that story — you can answer as many or as few of the questions on the form as you like. For more tips on how to join this news hunt, check NewsTrust's New Member Welcome page.
Throughout the news hunt, you can see the top-rated Presidential Election 2008 stories as reviewed by NewsTrust users. You'll see where the articles were published, a brief user summary/commentary on each article and links to other reviews. You'll also see a direct link to the review page so you can contribute your own evaluation of a story's coverage — you can choose to rate a story either with an overall recommendation or according to specific criteria, such as fairness or accuracy. If you see an article online that isn't available on the NewsTrust site, you can submit it by using their bookmarklet, which makes it easy to submit news stories from your Web browser.
At the end of our two-week news hunt, we hope to have a better idea of the state of today's news coverage on the presidential election, especially coverage of election reform. We're anxious to see the results: Are the media doing a good job covering this topic? Are there areas that are not being addressed? What can we do to raise the bar for journalists covering these issues today? We want to know — so let your voice be heard and review some stories today!
Ready for some good television that will enlighten, challenge, and inspire you? P.O.V. returns to PBS on 10 PM Tuesday evenings this summer. Take a sneak peek at the films that are coming up in our 2008 season preview:
Yance Ford, P.O.V.'s series producer, muses onTongues Untied, a landmark P.O.V. film — and one of the most controversial. The film has just been released on DVD by Strand Releasing.
Brother to Brother. Brother to Brother.
Brother to Brother. Brother to Brother.
Five men recite this phrase in staccato rhythm during the hypnotic opening of the film Tongues Untied (P.O.V. 1991) by Marlon Riggs, which is being released this week on DVD. I watched the film for the umpteenth time as I prepared to write this post and found myself nostalgic (again) for the days when black men of all orientations addressed each other as "brother" — rather than "nigger" or "nigga" — or however you spell it. Riggs ends the film with the statement "Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act." He was right then and he remains so. But I digress.
If, on July 16th, 1991, you were living in a market where your local PBS station hadn't refused to air the program, you would have witnessed what is still the most sage analysis of blackness, gay identity and racism ever captured on film. Tongues Untied aired during the vitriolic culture wars of the 90s (as opposed to the Internet-fuelled semi-polite culture wars of the new century) and quickly became the whipping boy of the late Senator Jesse Helms. Helms infamously called the film "Tongues United" while ranting against it, PBS, the NEA and homosexuals from the Senate floor.
Riggs never backed down from these and the many other attacks he faced, and defended not only his right to make his work and have it aired on PBS, but to have the tax dollars of gay Americans (no pun intended) considered in the discussion of what deserves public funding. A month after the broadcast, Riggs wrote in Current Magazine:
Paradoxically, the Tongues Untied censorship hysteria has helped re-kindle an essential public debate: who is to have access to so-called "public" media and on what terms? Who should represent "minority" perspectives and experience? Above all, who has the authority to draw the thin line between innocuous "diversity" and unacceptable "deviance"?
Sixteen years and two wars later, we still haven't answered these questions, and Riggs' landmark film remains a relevant as ever.
Anne del Castillo, P.O.V.'s director of development, was in California last week for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. She saw some great films while she was there — here's her report on what to look out for.
Presented by the Center for Asian American Media, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is the nation's largest showcase for more than 120 new Asian and Asian American films. Festival director Chi-hui Yang and his team always put together an amazing lineup and events. In just the two days that I was there, I saw a range of films that reflect the broad diversity of Asian and Asian American cinema. The festival took place over 11 days, so this is just a tiny slice of what was shown there.
At P.O.V., we've had the good fortune of working with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu on the broadcast of her stunning documentary In the Realms of the Unreal (P.O.V. 2005) about outsider artist Henry Darger, so I was eager to see her narrative feature debut. It wasn't until the film was introduced that I realized I'd been mixing up my cultural references: Ping Pong Playa is about a Chinese-American wannabe hip-hop b-ball player, and not a Latino update of Beach Blanket Bingo. Though some might say the film is predictable, for me it was reminiscent of a John Hughes film, with Jimmy Tsai as the reluctant, if not implausible, hero, "C-dub," who must cast aside his aspirations to become the first Chinese-American basketball star in order to defend his family's honor in the Golden Cock Ping Pong Tournament. Though a dramatic departure from her documentary work, Yu proves to be just as skilled at producing an off-the-wall, hilarious comedy.
On the other side of the spectrum is 19-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf's Buddha Collapsed from Shame. The beautiful, but devastating film set in Afghanistan marks the feature debut of the youngest daughter of Iranian filmmaker Moshen Makhmalbaf (Kandahar). The film opens with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, setting the atmosphere for the rest of the film, which plays like a documentary as we follow little Baktay in her quest to go to school like her friend Abbas. Along the way, she is confronted with one hurdle after another, and the film succeeds in depicting the sense of terror that years of violence and struggle have imposed on the country. The film received the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
Every Friday, journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the state of the documentary world in his column, Tom Roston's Doc Soup..
Now that Sundance is over, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary:
No End In Sight Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Operation Homecoming: Writing The Wartime Experience Richard E. Robbins
Sicko Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara
Taxi To The Dark Side Alex Gibney and Eva Orner
War/Dance Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine
What a great list! I might be in the minority, but I'll start the chant: Three cheers for the Academy! Hip, hip, hooray! You've heard me griping about the underappreciated War/Dance and Operation Homecoming, so I feel this is much-needed vindication for both films... but only if people get to see them, right? I suppose it'll be helpful to market the DVDs, but I'd love to see these two back in theaters soon. So are there any plans for theatrical re-releases? Sadly, director Richard Robbins informs me that there is no such future for Homecoming. The film never landed a proper theatrical distributor and the movie is already out on DVD — so I'll shill for the home team and say you should buy it at the PBS website. And hopefully, this'll mean that Robbins gets some more clout to get his next film before a wider audience.
This is the last of our live reports from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Cynthia Lopez is P.O.V./AmDoc's Vice President. This festival marked her eighth year attending Sundance. What follows is her personal diary of the high and low points of last week's Sundance Film Festival.
You just never know what's going to happen when you go to Sundance — and this year was no exception. As I shared past experiences with my colleague and first-time attendee Simon Kilmurry, I had no idea of the drama that lay ahead. But before I get to that, I'll start from the beginning.
Thursday, January 17:
We arrived at the Salt Lake City airport without any delays directly from PBS's annual Creative Summit held this year in San Francisco where executive producers, creative directors, marketing people and online producers come together to discuss the latest in best practices, trends in broadcasting, media research and demographic/audience information.
I picked up my industry pass at The Yarrow in record time — thank you Sundance and Cara Mertes! Later, I headed to our hotel, the Copper Bottom Inn, to return phone calls and to finalize plans for the P.O.V. annual party on Sunday.
We ate at Chez Betty, an intimate restaurant owned by Jerry Garcia. No, not the singer. If it's your first time at Sundance, then having a meal there is a must; it's often a site for celebrities, if you're into star-gazing.
Friday, January 18:
7:30 am: Finally, I was on my way to see my first Sundance Docs, a series of shorts at the Prospector Theater. Among them, I had two absolute favorites: Farewell Packets of Ten by director Ken Wardrop and Pilgrimage by Tadashi Nakamura. If you want to quit smoking you have to see these old ladies trying to have a conversation; it's a hoot! It made me laugh so hard; comedy this natural isn't easy to find. Pilgrimage, on the other hand, made me cry — which is difficult for me in 22 minutes! I am not that wound up. The film feels like an Asian hip-hop music video, and explores the tragic history of the Japanese concentration camps in California during World War II.
Last year, P.O.V. partnered with the WBGH Lab in Boston to support the great work they are doing there. The Lab assists young mediamakers in creating short films and encourages them to experiment with new ways of making and interacting with content. It's very cool, cutting-edge stuff. Every few months, the Lab announces an open call on their website offering filmmakers the opportunity to submit proposals for short films or media projects related to a specific theme. Selected applicants receive funding to complete their projects, input during the production process from professional media makers and a place to showcase their work.
Earlier this week, the Lab and the National Black Programming Consortium announced the five selected filmmakers who will receive funding and editorial support for their three-minute films, which explore issues of racism, expulsion of African Americans from communities, and reparations.
The works-in-progress will be up on their site through Sunday with the hope that site visitors will offer reactions and suggestions for improving the films. The shorts are pretty amazing for a first cut, very provocative and worth a look. My favorite featured some students from John Jay High School in my old neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, talking about their tense relationship with the community. I probably walked by that high school over a hundred times during my five years in the Slope, and I have to admit I never knew anything about it, or the students that went there. It's so great to see these teenagers picking up cameras and telling their own stories, rather than letting others tell their stories for them.
Update: The WGBH Lab has announced a new Open Call for submissions today. It's called "Watch Over Me." Forty-four million Americans are caring for aging relatives and friends. Are you one of them? If so, tell them your story. (Monday, January 28)
We hosted our annual P.O.V. brunch on Sunday — a welcome relief from the hectic pace of screenings, parties and general mischief that seems to be the Sundance routine. First to arrive was Steven Sebring and Patti Smith — an artist who changed my life at a formative stage. Steven's film Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an elegiac composition that beautifully integrates Patti's life as a mother, rock musician, artist and poet, activist and ultimately, as she says, "as a worker." It's been a highlight to meet Patti and spend a few minutes with her. Some of the band — Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty — arrived a little later. The band members have yet to see the film, so the premiere will be the first time. (More on that later.)
The Smith family — Jesse, Patti and Jackson — with filmmaker Steven Sebring
The brunch is a chance to catch up with P.O.V. friends and filmmakers whose work will or has been a part of P.O.V. in the past. P.O.V. alums in attendance included Thomas Allen Harris, Yvonne Welbon, Paul Stekler, Tasha Oldham and Alex Rivera. Alex's debut feature Sleep Dealer is creating a buzz at the festival.
It was a thrill to be able to announce that Traces of the Trade, Katrina Browne's wrenching examination of the legacy of the North's leadership in the slave trade, through her own family's complicity, will be part of P.O.V.'s 2008 lineup. Katrina brought her production team, including Elizabeth Delude-Dix and Jude Ray, and several members of the family including Tom DeWolf, who has written a new memoir based on his experience in the film, Inheriting the Trade (Beacon Press).
Eyes on the Prize is the most comprehensive — and moving — civil rights documentary series ever made. The landmark production by Blackside — which runs a formidable 14 hours in total — was first aired on PBS in two parts in 1987 and 1990. The series traces the Civil Rights Movement from the '50s through the '80s, with particular attention to the movement's milestones, including the Emmett Till case, Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery bus boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, the sit-ins and Freedom Rides, riots in Detroit and Watts, and Attica prison. There are segments on the major figures of the period, including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton.
Looking for a gift for your history-obsessed uncle? Your environmentally-conscious friend? Your urban sophisticate of a brother-in-law? Documentary DVDs could be the way to their heart this holiday season. When it comes to ordering documentaries, the glut of online stores selling DVDs make purchasing and shipping a breeze, but buyers and gifters beware: despite what you might think, one size doesn't necessarily fit all.
The Populist Amazon.com's Documentary Best Sellers list is an excellent place to visit if you're not sure where to get start. The list is updated hourly with what everyone else is buying (namely, docs about the planet and wars, with some musical docs thrown in — at least this week). Here, you can pick up a 5-disc set of The Blue Planet — Seas of Life for your teenage cousin who's taken a sudden interest in marine biology, or a copy of Ken Burns'The War for that history-obsessed uncle.
The Cinephile To the cinephile, the Criterion Collection's stamp of approval carries far greater weight than an Academy Award. The collection is a series of important classic and contemporary films on DVD. Each film chosen for inclusion is remastered and lovingly packaged with special extra features into a beautiful collector's item. Criterion's list of documentary DVDs includes canonical films from Robert Flaherty'sNanook of the North to the Maysles' Grey Gardens. But it also offers up unexpected gems, like the quirky and fascinating docu-series Fishing With John, written, directed and hosted by musician John Lurie and featuring everyone from Dennis Hopper to Tom Waits.
Indie Lens Short Film Festival An eclectic mix of stories and storytelling with this batch of winning shorts. View. Vote. Download.
18 in '08 Nonpartisan doc and movement targeting today's 17- to 24-year-olds, many of whom will be voting in their first presidential election in 2008. Watch trailer.
YouTube: The Gilmour Boys
What happens when novelist David Gilmour lets his 15-year-old son drop out of school on the condition that they watch three movies a week together? (Via Paper Cuts)
Independent Lens: Sisters in Law In a small courthouse in Cameroon, a tough-minded state prosecutor and court president help women in their village fight abuse.
Next Wednesday, December 12th, Oscar-winning director Freida Lee Mock'sWrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner airs on P.O.V. at 9 PM (check your local listings).
If you don't know Tony Kushner and his work in the theater, here's your opportunity to meet the man who has been called "the most charming dissident around." Since the breakthrough of his epic play Angels in America — subsequently made into a hit miniseries — in the early 1990s, Kushner has emerged as one of America's leading playwrights. Kushner's award-winning, ambitious plays tackle issues like AIDS, race and terrorism with sensitivity and humor, and they challenge us to engage with the moral and political issues of our times. In Wrestling with Angels, Mock follows Kushner for three tumultuous years, from September 11, 2001, up to the 2004 presidential election, to delve into the passions that keep him reaching for the great American play.
When the Charlie Rose Show started putting the entirety of its archives on YouTube (3,860 videos and counting), it allowed us to revisit old interviews, and get insightful peeks into the brains of some of the most intelligent, powerful and creative people in American today. Among those are some of America's greatest documentarians. Charlie Rose has been in conversations with the Spike Lee, Frederick Wiseman, Barbara Koppel and D.A. Pennebaker. Now, those conversations are just a click away.
In 1997, Rose talked to filmmaker Spike Lee and New York Times reporter Howell Raines about Lee's seminal documentary, Four Little Girls.
Freida Lee Mock's Academy Award® winning documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision premiered on P.O.V. in 1996. It was 25 years ago today that the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. On this anniversary date, we take a look back at the film, which follows a decade in the life of this visionary artist. Freida Lee Mock returns to P.O.V. on December 12th, 2007 with her new film about another extraordinary artist: Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
Visionary artist Maya Lin. By Adam Stoltman
On November 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. It was one of the most bitterly disputed public monuments in American history. Only 21 when her design for the Washington, D.C. Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen in 1981, Maya Lin has never shied away from controversy.
Her starkly simple slash of polished black granite inscribed with the 57,661 names of those who died in Vietnam was viciously attacked as "dishonorable," "a scar," and "a black hole," but Lin remained committed to her vision, and the Memorial, a moving tribute to sacrifice and quiet heroism, was built as planned. Since then, Lin has completed a succession of eloquent, startlingly original monuments and sculptures that confront vital American social issues.
Read more and watch an interview with filmmaker Freida Lee Mock after the jump...
With so much video and multimedia on the web, how do you figure out what to watch? P.O.V. Blog's Media Guide is here to recommend some of our favorite online videos.
If you're looking to watch online journalism at its finest, a good place to get started is with the list of winners from the recent News and Documentary Emmy Awards, which recognized outstanding achievements in journalism for broadband.
Mediastorm's Kingsley's Crossing won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary/Nonfiction Programming for Broadband. In a beautifully produced piece, Kingsley, a 23-year-old lifeguard from Cameroon, takes the viewer through the process of leaving Africa for a chance at a better life abroad. The scale and intimacy of Kingsley's Crossing works especially well as an online piece, as it uses still photographs, video, title cards and first-person narration to create an engaging 20-minute segment. Photojournalist Olivier Jobard, who captured the photographs and videos used in the piece, clearly established a trusting relationship with Kingsley, and their collaboration has created a thought-provoking online documentary.
New York Internional Independent Film and Video Festival 2008 Free Opening Night Tickets ... More » Stephen
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September 04, 2008
I am glad to see programs like POV exist, thank you for airing the documentary, if anything you have... More » Boris Contreras
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September 03, 2008
Robert Ramsdell, A,bany, OR
I watched the program on Chile recently with great interest. A grammar ... More » Robert Ramsdell
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September 02, 2008
Mark, Lalo and specially Tito:
I am Chilean, I've lived here ( in Chile) my whole life and I want... More » Paz
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September 01, 2008
If this "belorussian" chose to speak Belorussian, he should have learned it better. Very often he j... More » belorussian in America
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September 01, 2008
Sep 15, 6:30 pm In the Family
New York, NY
Come to a screening of In the Family, and follow filmmaker Joanna Rudnick after she tests positive for the "breast cancer gene" at age 27. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and experts in several fields. Buy tickets at the Paley Center website.
For the next two weeks, P.O.V. and PBS Engage are partnering with 
If, on July 16th, 1991, you were living in a market where your local PBS station hadn't refused to air the program, you would have witnessed what is still the most sage analysis of blackness, gay identity and racism ever captured on film. Tongues Untied aired during the vitriolic culture wars of the 90s (as opposed to the Internet-fuelled semi-polite culture wars of the new century) and quickly became the whipping boy of the late Senator Jesse Helms. Helms infamously called the film "Tongues United" while ranting against it, PBS, the NEA and homosexuals from the Senate floor. 
Presented by the 
Now that Sundance is over, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary:
This is the last of our live reports from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Cynthia Lopez is P.O.V./AmDoc's Vice President. This festival marked her eighth year attending Sundance. What follows is her personal diary of the high and low points of last week's Sundance Film Festival.
We hosted our annual P.O.V. brunch on Sunday — a welcome relief from the hectic pace of screenings, parties and general mischief that seems to be the Sundance routine. First to arrive was Steven Sebring and Patti Smith — an artist who changed my life at a formative stage. Steven's film Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an elegiac composition that beautifully integrates Patti's life as a mother, rock musician, artist and poet, activist and ultimately, as she says, "as a worker." It's been a highlight to meet Patti and spend a few minutes with her. Some of the band — Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty — arrived a little later. The band members have yet to see the film, so the premiere will be the first time. (More on that later.) 
Amazon.com's 
To the cinephile, the Criterion Collection's stamp of approval carries far greater weight than an Academy Award. The collection is a series of important classic and contemporary films on DVD. Each film chosen for inclusion is remastered and lovingly packaged with special extra features into a beautiful collector's item. 
