TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/090489/09048900.014

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 67 lines

VIDEO, Page 70

Ruckus over Days of Rage

A controversial look at Palestinians will air on PBS -- finally

By Richard Zoglin


    Of all the minefields TV journalists face today, none is more
treacherous than the Arab-Israeli conflict. The issue is so
emotional, so polarizing that any report that strays from a careful
fence straddle is virtually certain to raise a ruckus. The title
of PBS's latest foray into the subject, Days of Rage, refers to the
intifadeh, the Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation of
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But the name might just as well
describe the outcry that has greeted the documentary itself.

    The 90-minute film, a frankly sympathetic look at the
Palestinian revolt, first sparked protest last spring, when PBS
scheduled it for a June airing. The station that was originally
picked to sponsor it, New York City's WNYC, backed out; a top
executive denounced the film as a "pure propaganda piece." Another
New York station, WNET, agreed to take it on, but only if the
telecast was delayed so that "wraparound" material could be
produced; added were two taped segments presenting the Israeli
viewpoint and a panel discussion with Hodding Carter as host.

    Since then 4,000 letters have poured into WNET, mostly
criticizing plans to telecast the show. One expert whose appearance
in the film seems to bolster Palestinian charges of human rights
abuses, Michael Posner of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights,
has lambasted the finished product for being biased. Meanwhile, the
film's producer, Jo Franklin-Trout, has angrily charged WNET and
PBS with caving in to pressure from Israel's supporters, who make
up a significant proportion of public TV's contributors.

    Days of Rage (now subsumed in a 2 1/2-hour package titled
Intifada: The Palestinians and Israel, to air on Sept. 6) is a
forceful, if one-sided, report that gives voice to people rarely
heard talking in such calm and coherent tones. The Palestinians
interviewed come across as reasonable and sympathetic: a man whose
home was bulldozed without warning, a university head arrested and
sent to prison, a seven-year-old girl who saw her father shot to
death by Israeli soldiers. While Franklin-Trout is not overtly
partisan, her on-camera questions are indulgent and unchallenging
("They blew up your house? . . . What was the charge?").

    What is missing is any discussion of the reasons behind
Israel's crackdown. Palestinian terrorism is glossed over, and the
only Israelis heard at length are left-wingers critical of the
government's policy. The wraparound material tries to fill these
gaps. "We want to provide some clear indication that this is not
your normal documentary, that it is more in the nature of an
editorial or a commentary column," says PBS programming chief Barry
Chase. Franklin-Trout, a former producer for the MacNeil/Lehrer
Report, objects that the added segments water down her message. "To
hang all sorts of baggage on the front and the end," she says,
"simply destroys the integrity of the film."

    For PBS watchers, the chain of events is painfully familiar.
Documentaries with a strong point of view are scarce on the
network, which receives substantial funding from corporations more
comfortable with genial nature specials than provocative
journalism. The few hard-hitting shows that do appear are usually
saddled with a discussion segment to put the issue "in context,"
i.e., appease the protesters. Still, PBS occasionally muddles
through to a victory of sorts. Days of Rage, for all its flaws,
deserves to be seen, and it will be seen -- uncut and uncensored.
And one cannot have much sympathy with the argument that adding
discussion on a controversial topic is wrong. For viewers still
confused by a complex and troubling issue, the more voices the
better.