Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 178

Bill Moyers Covering Our Beethoven Film on Friday

Yes, coming on his Moyers & Company show on public TV over 300 stations, starting Friday, Bill will be doing a segment on our new Following the Ninth film.  Moyers will be showing part of the trailer and talking about how the film explores the global cultural and political influence on the Ninth Symphony.   Here's his preview for the entire show.  More on the film and our book and the full trailer here.   The Moyers video preview below.  The film opened in NYC earlier this month and comes to L.A. on Nov. 22 (and other cities).  I am co-producer of the film, with Kerry Candaele as director.

Another Day, Another School Shooting

This time in Pittsburgh.   Three students shot outside or very near school by either one person, or three, who came out of woods and on the loose.  One student in stable condition, others not life-threatening, they say.   More  here and more  to come.  One report:  "Police said three men dressed in black were reported shooting toward the school from a hill above."  Latest has a shotgun shell recovered and police outside a nearby home.  Largest high school in city.  Now a report that victims knew the shooters and might be connected to gang/drug incident at school on Oct. 18. 

McClatchy Finds Quite a Few Other Holes in "60 Minutes" Report

While nearly everyone has focused on the major element of the CBS bogus Benghazi report, McClatchy veteran Middle East correspondent Nancy Youssef and researchers there today present a long list of other factual problems, or very dubious assertions, in the segment.  Taken together, they further the notion that Lara Logan had an agenda and cooked or accepted weak evidence to make her "case."  The entire piece here.

"Logan’s mea culpa said nothing about other weaknesses in the report that a line-by-line review of the broadcast’s transcript shows," Youssef reports.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/13...
It opens, however, with CBS revealing that a "journalistic" review of their segment is ongoing, which is vague and may mean little.  And a good reminder in the piece:

Logan claimed that “it’s now well established that the Americans were attacked by al Qaida in a well-planned assault.” But al Qaida has never claimed responsibility for the attack, and the FBI, which is leading the U.S. investigation, has never named al Qaida as the sole perpetrator. Rather it is believed a number of groups were part of the assault, including members and supporters of al Qaida and Ansar al Shariah as well as attackers angered by a video made by an American that insulted Prophet Muhammad. The video spurred angry protests outside Cairo hours beforehand.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/13...

WikiLeaks Leaks TPP Chapter

WikiLeaks has been promising a potential bombshell today, and now it's here, a recent draft chapter from  the already much-criticized Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty (involves nations all the way from U.S. and Peru to Australia  and Japan).  The Verge summarizes, as it digs deeper into the doc:

The leaked chapter focuses on intellectual property rights, and is part of a broader agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that has been in the works for several years now between the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and several other countries. Though the draft is being written in secret, it's rumored to be moving toward a fast track through Congress. Some details of the agreement have been leaked in the past, but today's come from a quite recent draft, dated August 30th, 2013 — it's also the only one to detail which countries are in support of which proposals.

The Sydney Morning Herald received an early look at the leaked draft, and notes that it focuses on the United States' federal and corporate interests, while largely ignoring the rights and interests of consumers. "One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view," Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, tells the Herald. "Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this."

For What It's Worth

That's the title of the Buffalo Springfield tune that most people think was inspired by antiwar or civil rights '60s protests but actually...was based on the 1966 "teen riot" on Sunset Strip in L.A. 47 years ago last night.   See trailer for B-movie about it the following year with a quite different song intro by The Standells of "Dirty Water" fame.

DylanWorld

This exists:  9-minute vid of Dylan rehearsing his 10-second contribution to "We Are the World," with Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones.

Giving "60 Minutes" Credit--And Where It Leads

I've said a lot, and there's much left to be said, about media coverage of the "60 Minutes" bogus Benghazi report scandal.  But nothing peeves me more than prominent media writers/critics crediting CBS with offering a belated  apology/correction, of giving them "points" for it, even if they think it didn't go far enough.  I've seen this time and again in the past few days.

For example, Alicia Shepard, who has done great work in the past as media writer, editor, and ombud, in a piece at Columbia Journalism Review, called Lara Logan's apology last Friday "brave."   Last Friday, Erik Wemple at the Wash Post, wrote:  "Lara Logan this morning delivered a clinic on how a media organization should correct the record on faulty reporting...And with those words, about 10 tons of pressure drained from the Manhattan offices of '60 Minutes.'”  (Really?)  Tom Rosenstiel, longtime director of the  American Press Institute, has  called the "60 Minutes" correction highly unusual and so they deserve credit for that.  

Here's Rosenstiel on the PBS NewsHour last night:

CBS deserves credit for admitting that they made a mistake. That's unusual in broadcast. We don't see corrections on television in the course of normal activity. And mistakes are made all the time.

True, mistakes are often made.  But 1) not normally on the level of a completely false interview that forms the major part of a full segment on a hot political subject via the top-rated network news show and 2) now completely debunked, in a humiliating and high-profile way, by the two leading U.S. newspapers, the NYT and Wash Post.  

For veteran media critics to give CBS any credit whatsoever for pulling the story is disgraceful.  What other choice did "brave" Lara Logan and team have?  It is unfathomable to imagine them not offering at least the very brief apologies that did come.  So they deserve credit for that?  Saying so only blunts the strong criticism of what "60 Minutes" and the questions left unanswered. 

Again, Rosenstiel last night, when asked what CBS needs to do now:

[W]hat they owe us, what they owe the public is assurances that there -- that there isn't something that -- in their processes that will allow this to happen again.

They need to reassure the public, look, we understand what we did wrong, and it's not -- and -- and we have learned from this and it's not going to happen again. You can trust us in the future.

Of course, that does nothing.  That's the easiest thing to say:  It won't happen again (even though we won't tell you why it happened this time).  You can trust (but why?).  We've learned a lesson (such as?)  In fact, Lara Logan has already essentially done this in her 90-second statement on Sunday, assuring viewers that "truth" is still her show's highest goal.   The views of the Rosenstiels will only bolster the chances that, in fact, this sort of thing will happen again, and again.

And for the larger picture, let me again recommend Amy Davidson's post at The New Yorker late yesterday. 

Roll Over, Beethoven: Our New Film Opening L.A. and More!

After its sold-out premiere at Lincoln Center and week-long run in NYC, Kerry Candaele's unique new film Following the Ninth (I am co-producer) starts to screen all over the USA starting today, with two showings in Sedona, Az.   It opens next Friday in L.A. for a week.  I'll be appearing with it in Hudson, N.Y. on Dec. 5 and it starts a two-week Chicago run on Dec. 22.  Also on the slate:  Pasadena, KC, Santa Fe, and more.   See trailer below.

Reviews now appearing.  Very positive review from New York Times, and it appears up front on page 3 of the arts section in print.  "Thrilling... all the film’s segments are smartly assembled and gracefully paced. Oh, and the score’s pretty good, too."

Just got a rave from the Village Voice.   "A majestic sonic travelogue... that rarest of films: a documentary as ineffable and transformative in its reach as it sets out to be."

Another good review at Film Journal. "Stirring documentary."

Joan Walsh of Salon and MSNBC tweeted: "Saw 'Following the Ninth' last night at Lincoln Center, hits The Quad Friday,  go!"

Hollywood Reporter: "Persuasive feel-good movie doc.... offers enough spirit-lifting moments to prove its thesis and leave viewers inspired!"
 
Alex Gibney, the Academy Award-winning director, tweeted last week,  "Hearing interesting things about 'Following the Ninth,' film about various uses of the Ludwig Van piece."

The film follows the Ninth Symphony and its enormous cultural and political influence around the world.  So we travel from Chile during the Pinochet years, to China's Tiananmen Square uprising,  to Japan (for the annual mass singing of the "Ode to Joy") and to Germany with Leonard Bernstein for the fall of the Wall, plus Billy Bragg re-writing the "Ode to Joy"--and playing it for the Queen.

I've also written a book with Kerry, now in print and e-book  editions:  Journeys With Beethoven: Following the Ninth , published by Sinclair Books. It's just $3.99 for the e-book and $10.99 for print.

You can write me at:  epic1934@aol.com.    And here's Kerry's terrific trailer:

New Aaron Swartz Film

Mashable tonight with "first look" in full at upcoming Aaron Swartz doc.  Trailer below.

What '60 Minutes' Really Missed

As usual, Amy Davidson of The New Yorker provides one of the best takes on a hot topic, in this case, the Bogus Benghazi report and semi-apology.    She gets at some of the larger issues, from overall coverage and partisan debate over the embassy attack to our attack on and involvement in Libya that set the scenario for what happened last year.

Those military and diplomatic questions deserve better answers, ones about policy choices rather than half-discerned conspiracies. You wouldn’t know from Logan’s report that the United States was engaged at the time in a historic and violent transition in Libya, in which the Qaddafi regime was overthrown with the help of our forces, or about that revolution’s disordered denouement, or about the Obama Administration’s decision to ignore the War Powers Act. Libya is presented as nothing but a place with a diplomatic mission and Al Qaeda’s black flags in the street. Brave men swinging rifle butts are thwarted by craven ones in Washington who won’t move their “military assets” into the country.