In this Link TV Special, meet two nationally-known and respected journalists iced out of the corporate media for their honest coverage of Iraq. The United States may champion freedom of speech in its Constitution, but the sad fact remains that corporate concerns can dictate what its citizens may see reported in the media. In this special, we examine the important independent career of Jon Alpert, and others like him while alerting our viewers to the increasing importance of independent media.
Columnist Robert Scheer, now working at the San Francisco Chronicle after being fired for his views at the LA Times, interviews Emmy Award-winning veteran television producer & director Jon Alpert, who was similarly fired by NBC after bringing back footage of life in Iraq under the bombs of the 1991 Gulf War. This controversial film, Inside Iraq, will be aired in the special alongside two other essential films by Alpert.
Inside Iraq
In 1991, Jon Alpert beat Saddam’s censors when he smuggled out footage of life in Iraq under the bombs of Desert Storm. However, NBC’s censors were too much to handle. Three hours before its scheduled national broadcast, Michael Gartner, then President of NBC News, pulled the plug on the story – and Alpert’s career at NBC along with it.
Main Street USA
In the summer of 2003, DCTV, a media center in Chinatown New York, took clips from the videos they shot at Ground Zero, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and showed them to Americans in towns across the country. Main Street USA combines the state-of-the-art technology of the Cybercar and verite-style documentary reports for a pulse-taking voyage across America.
Afghanistan: From Ground Zero to Ground Zero
Masuda Sultan, an Afghan-American young woman travels to Kandhar to look for her family. She's shattered to find out that 19 members of her family died in a military attack led by the American Army. Though she supports America's effort against terrorism, she wants to know why her family died in the desert.
LEARN MORE:
Truthdig is an award-winning alternative online news source, edited by Robert Scheer.
UTNE reprints the best of alternative journalism, with articles available online.
Alternet draws together the work of independent journalists for daily news coverage and commentary.
DCTV is a community media center co-founded by Jon Alpert.
You can read Alpert’s bio on the DCTV website.
Robert Scheer's column is available online through the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Columbia Journalism Review covers Jon Alpert’s firing in 1991.
The website for Baghdad ER, Jon Alpert’s Emmy award-winning film.
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media.
Visit Link TV's Specials Page.
